EA’s COO Peter Moore issued a response to a recent poll that has named his Electronic Arts one of the worst companies in America. The poll seems to be the latest in what has been a long line of missteps by the company in the last few years.
Almost everyone heard about the problems that were brought by the launch of SimCity. Those problems were big enough to cause the company to actually hand out free games in an attempt to win back their customers.
Following that debacle, as well as the general struggles of the company in regards to a whole host of other games Electronic Arts announced a round of layoffs in their Montreal and Los Angeles studios.
EA’s layoffs were followed about a month later by the company’s CEO, John Riccitiello announcing that he was leaving as well. The latest blow is the poll, that is being carried out by the Consumerist that allows their users to pick the country’s worst company.
The selections are set up to closely mirror the way the NCAA Tournament is carried out and Electronic Arts is currently in the semi-finals. On the company’s official blog, Peter Moore tried to respond to this less than glowing review of his firm.
Moore’s post boiled down to a plea to the company’s customers to have a little patience and understand that they realize this “award” isn’t something that any company should strive for.
The COO also acknowledged that the lack of love for his company wasn’t anything new. In the blog he admitted that “This is the same poll that last year judged us as worse than companies responsible for the biggest oil spill in history, the mortgage crisis, and bank bailouts that cost millions of taxpayer dollars.”
The post wasn’t 100 percent conciliartory. Moore said that the reasons the company got to the semi-finals last year was because of users’ mistaken belief that Electronic Arts supported SOPA and that people didn’t like the ending to Mass Effect 3 .
The COO also talked about how he believed that most of the reason his firm ranked so high is because the people who use his products are already on the Internet alot. That seemed like a bit of a cop-out considering that most people who visit the Consumerist are consumers in general.
At the end of the post, Moore did say that he believes his company can do better and will do better. He also closed by saying that his company was unbowed and proud.
Are you happy with the way EA responded to this poll?