MAITLAND, Florida: The videogame company Electronic Arts, which builds some of its major titles in Maitland, has landed on a dubious list of America's most-hated companies.
The fallout appears to stem from the company's recent scuffle with gamers over in-game purchases, a strategy that EA pushed hard in its popular Star Wars Battlefront II title.
The approach allows gamers to buy experience points and other rare items to advance quickly through games. EA temporarily suspended the practice in the Battlefront game. During an earnings call in late January, CEO Andrew Wilson hinted that in-game purchases would be researched some more.
In the list of 20 companies compiled by 24/7 Wall Street, a note about EA's No. 5 ranking says that the company has helped shape the face of gaming but that it also has "earned a reputation as the industry's evil empire," both because of the loot fiasco and its tendency to absorb small studios.
The website says it factored in metrics that include customer service and employee satisfaction among its criteria for the list.
Electronic Arts' popularity has varied wildly. Just as the company landed on the 24/7 Wall Street list, Fortune magazine named it as one of the 50 companies poised for growth and placed it at No. 23 in its list of the world's most-admired companies.
The blog post also included Equifax, which suffered a security breach last year; United Airlines, which faced a public relations nightmare after an incident captured on camera showed a passenger being roughed up while getting booted off a plane; and the NFL, which faced backlash in 2017 from several player protests.
Electronic Arts employs about 700 people in its Maitland office, where a large part of its popular Madden football and NBA Live basketball videogames are built.
The stock has been on a volatile path since microtransactions were removed in mid-November, dropping as far as US$100.83 (RM395.02) on Dec 4. — Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service
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