海角大神

Worst company in America?

This is not a list you want to be on once, let alone twice.

But the annual Consumerist poll shows that Electronic Arts, the giant video game company, is now vying with Bank of America, Ticketmaster, and Comcast to be the 2013 Worst Company in America.

EA was also the 2012 "winner" of the Consumerist poll. The company publishes dozens of video game titles, including "Madden NFL," "Sim City," and "Star Wars: The Old Republic." EA made more than $4 billion in revenue in 2012.

The annual March poll of readers produces聽a bracket race that mirrors the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament. The poll is a two-choice vote with one question: "Which Company Is Worse?"

The Consumerist "Final Four" contenders are as follows:

Bank of America (64%) vs. Walmart (36%)
聽Ticketmaster (55%) vs. Carnival (45%)
聽Comcast (67%) vs. Time Warner Cable (33%)
聽EA (84%) vs. AT&T (16%)

What's the beef that consumers have with EA?

We don't know for sure from the polling data, but the Consumerist offered these reasons when EA finished "first" in聽last year's poll:

But this year, EA Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore fired back, noting that "This is the same poll that last year judged us as worse than companies responsible for the biggest oil spill in history, the mortgage crisis, and bank bailouts that cost millions of taxpayer dollars."

Moore goes on to say:

Moore also suspects that this year's poll is skewed by conservative groups that don't like the inclusion of homosexual characters in games.
"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.聽 This week, we鈥檙e seeing posts on conservative web sites urging people to protest our LGBT policy by voting EA the Worst Company in America."

Consumerist blogger Chris Moran responds that this is a scurrilous claim.

"EA received hundreds of nominations from Consumerist readers this year, by far the most of any contender in the bracket, but not a single one mentioned anything about sexual orientation. Consumerist does not condone homophobia or hate speech of any kind, and聽our readers understand the Worst Company contest and nominate businesses based on their merits."

The Consumerist blog was started by Gawker and sold to Consumers Union, the publishers of Consumer Reports, in December 2008.

Previous "winners" of the Worst Company in America poll include: Comcast, AIG, Halliburton, and BP.