Congratulations, Time Warner Cable. You’re so terrible that you’ve convinced the masses not just to knock out EA — two-time winner of the Worst Company in America award — but to knock them out in the first round.
EA took home Worst Company honours in 2012 and 2013 following controversies surrounding some of their video games, like Mass Effect 3 and SimCity. The publisher had a #1 seed this year , but were upset by Time Warner Cable, a cable company whose powers for evil have been exacerbated both by the impending death of net neutrality and a massive merger with Comcast.
Coincidentally, this afternoon I have to go to the TWC office in Manhattan to replace a faulty cable box. While looking up their address on Google Maps, I found this:
Good job, Time Warner Cable. You did it.
Comments
26 responses to “EA Loses ‘Worst Company In America’ Contest In First Round”
This is why it needs to be Double Elimination :p
Other that net neutrality, what’s wrong with Time Warner Cable? I live in Australia…so….
I’d compare them to Telstra, but that’s an insult to Telstra. They’re just horrible, horrible to deal with, over work their workers, rip their customers off and give horrible customer service. That’s what I understand from my US friends and what I have read on the net and seen how they’re portrayed in the media.
Imagine a world where Telstra and Foxtel were the same company and they were about to take over Optus.
In addition to what @virus__ mentioned, they’re also one of the leaders in forcing monopolies and eradicating the concept of customer choice, when they have a captive market thanks to bought legislation they let their infrastructure go to shit, charge more for less and don’t give a shit because the customer literally has absolutely no choice. It’s them or no internet.
They’re one of the ideal textbook examples of an exploitative monopoly
I believe this is why Google is doing what it is doing with it’s national fibre program.
Yeah that’s the only thing that has even vaguely stimulated any infrastructure development from the major ISPs (shame it’s so incredibly tiny at the moment). It’s pretty appalling how lazy and dependant on monopoly they’ve become, they get handouts for improving infrastructure and then simply don’t, any handouts should be a contract with targets that need to be met rather than a gift, I’d be amazed as to why it’s not if I wasn’t a cynical prick and assume it was simply a payoff for political lobbying work rather than a genuine attempt to improve infrastructure.
So basically take over the market, then not give a fuck about customer service because they can just say “Go to another company…wait…we are the only company. Fuck you.” Click
Exactly. That’s why the whole merger with Comcast has so many people worried because it’ll make an even bigger monopoly, eliminating the choice between being kicked in the teeth or punched in the throat that a lucky few American cities currently have and leaving everyone laying on the ground with a boot on their throat while being punched in the face and having to pay for it because there’s no choice. They don’t care abut quality because there’s no profit in it for them. They’re worse than Ferengi.
Add to that the fact that Netflix have caved and started bribing Comcast to not arbitrarily throttle their traffic (because that’s not illegal) and things are looking pretty fucking shit for the internet over there at the moment. Someone made this image showing how bad things could get if net neutrality collapsed, frankly its looking less alarmist every time this kind of crap happens
I hear Google fiber are doing good things but it’s taking a while to roll out. Living here in Australia, we are about 9 years behind everywhere else. Alot of regions still have dial- up. I only got broadband within the last 3 years. Google needs to be the hero gotham deserves, because it’s the one it needs right now.
Internet grows up….. Or we’re too busy playing Titanfall
Given that the new front-runner is just another American entertainment company known for being aggressively hostile to consumers in the pursuit for their wallet, I wouldn’t call that growing up at all.
I’ll leave this here:
http://imgur.com/gallery/i2NpK
I’m guessing it’s the cable company guy from South Park…
*EDIT*
Booyah!
While I’m not saying Time Warner don’t deserve it I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out EA rigged the votes with bots. http://i.imgur.com/sURQd.jpg Gonna put this here for those who doubt me.
i lost it at “Fight the haters with good games! – Nick from North Korea”
I’m sure they had a whole department on it… Yep…. Uh huh
Just as they had a whole department out there stomping on abandoned kittens that they fed babies to… While invading Iraq…
Don’t worry EA, you’ll still always be the worst company in America to me…
I’m so glad that gamers were mature enough to vote EA the worst company in America two years in a row because they released a piece of entertainment with a bad ending.
Much, much, much worse than companies that heavily pollute areas, critically damage an ecosystem, kill countless thousands wildlife, then try to lawyer their way out of compensation that they agreed to.
Priorities: doing it right.
Well, from how these companies affected “me”, EA is by far the worst. They 1. charged me $10 to call their helpline before telling me that they couldn’t help with my Sims 3 issue (http://www.choice.com.au/shonkyaward/shonky-award-ea-games.aspx), 2. Refer me to forums such as EA Answers to solve my Sims 3 issue, only to find that is just full of other people with the same problem but no solution, 3. Don’t respond to any of my emails requesting a patch for The Sims 3 Mac expansion install issue (which loads of people have). I can certainly see how they won the award… twice…
I don’t see how calling a company out as the “Worst company in america” will make a company that heavily pollutes and kills wildlife change their tack.
This! The reasons why EA won it the last two years is because they have been the only company to respond to the award. The rest of the companies on the list dont give a rats arse about some crappy award from the internet. Monsanto, Bank of America, Citi Bank, Time Warner etc all dont give a fuck about it, but each time EA won it they complain, they released PR statements and lots of “woe is me” talk
It brings more attention of such actions to the general public spotlight. But people not being able to play SimCity is waaaaaay more important and humanity as a whole is much better off….
Totally missed the point and acted like an asshole.
“All you accomplished with that.”
It never should have won those other two years.
Beyond Time-Warner, you also got Bank of America on that list, and numerous others who are actively destroying lives, not just charging a bit much for extra content, or having bad support hotlines
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME EA! KEEP YOUR CHIN UP!