Many gamers felt a strong aversion towards Electronic Arts during a particular period. Former Electronic Arts executive, Peter Moore, recently shared memories of his time at the company in an interview with The Game Business.
Moore, who was then in charge of the sports division, noted that in 2012-2013, EA was twice named the “Worst Company in America” according to readers of The Consumerist. He expressed bewilderment and frustration over how the public reacted so strongly, particularly to the controversial ending of Mass Effect 3.
He recalled: “We were named the worst company in America two years in a row because of the Mass Effect ending. Seriously, at the time, BP was polluting the Gulf of Mexico, Bank of America collapsed the global economy with high-risk subprime mortgages. But, it was Colonel Shepard dying in Mass Effect 3 that made us the worst company in America. That’s what we had to go through.”
It is worth noting that beyond the Mass Effect 3 ending, other factors also contributed significantly to EA’s negative perception during those years, which Moore did not extensively detail in his interview. These included, for example, the mandatory online connection for the new SimCity game (a problem Moore himself acknowledged in 2013), as well as the often-unpopular push for the Origin digital distribution platform.