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EA's Peter Moore promises the firm "can do better, and will do better"

Last year, results from a poll in The Consumerist saw EA deemed the Worst Company in America. Today, the firm's COO Peter Moore has responded, promising the company is "committed to fixing our mistakes."

It was a bit interesting to see the firm win the award in 2012 considering in 2001 BP was the clear winner - what with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and all. In 2012, EA even beat out Bank of America, a firm which was one of the largest contributors to the financial crisis.

Moore attributed the firm's 'win' to people mistakenly believing the firm was supporting SOPA and because they didn't like the Mass Effect 3 ending.

"This year’s contest started in March with EA outpolling a company which organizers contend is conspiring to corner the world market on mid-priced beer, and allegedly waters down its product," said Moore regarding running against Anheuser-Busch over the Budweiser fiasco. "That debate takes place in bars – our audience lives on the Internet. So no surprise that we drew more votes there.

"Let me cut to the chase: it appears EA is going to “win.” EA is one of those organizations that is defined by both a legacy of success, and a legion of critics. Are we really the “Worst Company in America?” I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve made plenty of mistakes. These include server shut downs too early, games that didn’t meet expectations, missteps on new pricing models and most recently, severely fumbling the launch of SimCity.

"We owe gamers better performance than this."

While Moore believes some of the complaints by "consumers are 100% legitimate," EA is not perfect and neither are other companies.

"Many continue to claim the Always-On function in SimCity is a DRM scheme. It’s not. People still want to argue about it. We can’t be any clearer – it’s not. Period," he said. "Some claim there’s no room for Origin as a competitor to Steam. 45 million registered users are proving that wrong.

"Some people think that free-to-play games and micro-transactions are a pox on gaming. Tens of millions more are playing and loving those games."

Moore said EA has even seen mailing lists telling people to vote for EA just because they are unhappy with the cover athlete chosen for Madden NFL.

"Yes, really… [and] in the past year, we have received thousands of emails and postcards protesting against EA for allowing players to create LGBT characters in our games," he continued. "This week, we’re seeing posts on conservative web sites urging people to protest our LGBT policy by voting EA the Worst Company in America.

"That last one is particularly telling. If that’s what makes us the worst company, bring it on. Because were not caving on that."

Moore continued, stating that EA was "committed to fixing our mistakes," citing the free game offer to Origin players over the SimCity flubs which he said the 900,000 who took the firm up on said offer "were owed."

"Every day, millions of people across globe play and love our games – literally, hundreds of millions more than will vote in this contest," he said. "So here’s my response to this poll: We can do better. We will do better. But I am damn proud of this company, the people around the globe who work at EA, the games we create and the people that play them."

EA is currently moving on to the Consumerist's "semi-finals", besting AT&T's 16.08 % with 83.92% of the vote.

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Stephany Nunneley-Jackson avatar

Stephany Nunneley-Jackson

News Editor

Stephany is VG247’s News Editor, with 22 years experience (with 15 of them at VG247). With a brain that lacks adhesive ducks, the ill-tempered, chaotic neutral fembot does her best to bring you the most interesting gaming news. She is also unofficially the site’s Lord of the Rings/Elder Scrolls Editor.

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