Criticism
EA is often criticized for buying smaller development studios primarily for their intellectual property assets, and then making the developers produce mediocre games on these same franchises. For example, Origin-produced Ultima VIII: Pagan and Ultima IX: Ascension were developed quickly under EA's ownership, over the protests of Ultima creator Richard Garriott,[11] and these two are considered by many[12] as not up to the standard of the rest of the series.[13][14]
EA is also criticized for shutting down its acquired studios after a poorly performing game.[15] [16][17] The historical pattern of poor sales and ratings of the first game shipped after acquisition suggests EA's control and direction as being primarily responsible for the game's failure rather than the studio. Magic Carpet 2 was rushed to completion over the objections of designer Peter Molyneux and it shipped during the holiday season with several major bugs. Studios such as Origin, Westwood Studios, and Bullfrog had previously produced games attracting a significant fanbase, and when they were closed down many top designers and programmers refused to stay with EA and formed rival studios. Many fans also became annoyed that their favourite developers were closed down, but some developers, for example the EALA studio, have stated that they try to carry on the legacy of the old studio, in this case Westwood Studios. EA has also received harsh fire from labor groups for its dismissals of large groups of employees during the closure of a studio (see below). Such was the case with the game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.[18]
After releasing many products, the lack of support is notable in many games, assured by the fact that EA declared openly that it would no longer support relatively new but still buggy titles, like Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Need for Speed: Underground and some of the latest Command & Conquer[19] games.
EA has also been criticized for other aggressive business methods like the acquisition of 19.9 percent of shares of its competitor Ubisoft in what was called a "hostile act" by Ubisoft CEO, Yves Guillemot.[20] However, this has not materialized into anything hostile and Guillemot later indicated that a merger with EA was a possibility.[21]
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Employment policy
Electronic Arts has been criticized for employees working extraordinarily long hours—up to 100 hours per week— and not just at "crunch" times leading up to the scheduled releases of products. The publication of the EA Spouse blog, with criticisms such as "The current mandatory hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.—seven days a week—with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behaviour (at 6:30 p.m.)".[22] The company has since settled a class action lawsuit brought by game artists to compensate for "unpaid overtime".[23] The class was awarded $15.6 million. As a result, many of the lower-level developers (artists, programmers, producers, and designers) are now working at an hourly rate. A similar suit brought by programmers was settled for $14.9 million.[24]
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Exclusive licenses
After Sega's ESPN NFL 2K5 successfully grabbed market share away from EA's dominant Madden NFL series during the 2004 holiday season, EA responded by making several large sports licensing deals which include an exclusive agreement with the NFL, and in January 2005, a 15-year deal with ESPN, much as with Take Two Interactive's exclusive licensing deal with baseball's Major League.[25] The ESPN deal gives EA exclusive first rights to all ESPN content for sports simulation games. On April 11, 2005, EA announced a similar, 6-year licensing deal with the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) for exclusive rights to college football content.[26]
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Game quality
For 2006, the games review aggregation site Metacritic gives the average of EA games as 72.0 (out of 100); 2.5 points behind Nintendo (74.5) but ahead of the other first-party publishers Microsoft (71.6) and Sony (71.2). The closest third-party publisher is Take 2 (publishing as 2K Games and Rockstar) at 70.3. The remaining top 10[27] publishers (Sega, Konami, THQ, Ubisoft, Activision) all rate in the mid 60's.
However, EA's aggregate review performance has shown a downward trend in quality over recent years and is expected to affect market shares during competitive seasons. Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson has said, "Poor reviews and quality are beginning to tarnish the EA brand. According to our ongoing survey of GameRankings.com aggregated review data, Electronic Arts' overall game quality continues to fall...Although market share has not declined dramatically to date, in years such as 2007, which promises to have tremendous competition, it seems likely if quality does not improve."[28][29]
EA has also received criticism for developing games that lack innovation vis-à-vis the number of gaming titles produced under the EA brand that show a history of yearly updates, particularly in their sporting franchises. These typically retail as new games at full market price and feature only updated team rosters in addition to incremental changes to game mechanics, the user interface, and graphics. One critique compared EA to companies like Ubisoft and concluded that EA's innovation in new and old IPs, "Crawls along at a snail's pace."[30], while even the company's own CEO, John Riccitiello, acknowledged the lack of innovation seen in the industry generally, saying, "We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play. For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat. There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before."[31].
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Editing of Wikipedia
On August 15, 2007 it was revealed that IP addresses registered to EA had made changes to its Wikipedia entry favoring EA.[32][33] The changes made included downplaying the importance of the founder of EA, Trip Hawkins, as well as playing up the importance of former CEO, Larry Probst.[32] Other changes included attempts to remove information regarding the infamous EA Spouse scandal, which involved the poor treatment of workers. In addition, several paragraphs under criticism were removed completely. [32]
EA's response was that "Many companies routinely post updates on websites like Wikipedia to ensure accuracy of their own corporate information."[34] It did not, however, address the specifics of the changes.
