EA COO Peter Moore Says Publisher “Can Do Better”

The Worst Company of 2012 are all set to regain their title. Of course, I’m referring to Electronic Arts and The Consumerist’s poll to crown The Worst Company in America 2013. Currently, EA are through to the semi-finals of the web poll and COO of the publisher Peter Moore seems convinced that they’ll pick up the top honours, once again.

Cheif operating officer Moore said this and more in a blog post entitled, “We Can Do Better“. Moore admits that the company has to hold their hands up when it comes to certain issues, including “severely fumbling the launch of SimCity”. However, he also listed a number of things that he feels garner unwarranted criticisms:

• “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.

• 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.

• We’ve seen mailing lists that direct people to vote for EA because they disagree with the choice of the cover athlete on Madden NFL. Yes, really…

• 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.  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.”

Moore also added that 900,000 SimCity players downloaded the free game they were promised after the SimCity server issues, something that the COO states gamers were “owed”. 

Firstly, Moore’s right on the money here, with some things. EA did get a lot of flack for LGBT characters from close-minded individuals who don’t live in the real world. Backward minded human beings attacking EA over something that should in no way be vilified. The same goes for Madden. That’s just ridiculous.

However, the always online DRM in SimCity and whether or not its vital, is an issue that will be debated for some time yet. Origin isn’t a match for Steam, yet. There’s no doubting that it could be something down the road, but regardless, competition is good. On the subject of F2P and micro-transactions, I think Moore is missing the point, a little. There’s a definite value in free-to-play, even if many major publishers are still unsure about how use it correctly. The micro-transaction issue is completely different. Adding in-app purchases that can drastically alter games that you’ve already dropped cash on is a vile tactic.

It’s not like this poll means anything, really. It’s a bad advertisement for them and that’s about it. I will say that Moore’s willingness to at least speak on these topics is a good thing. When your back is up against the wall, there comes a time when you have to be transparent. It’s not about painting EA as this big bad wolf for the sake of it, it’s about wanting better from a publisher that owns some terrific developers and IPs.

You’re spot on, Peter. You can do better.