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Comment by vunderba | Hacker News Reader

EA has been a target of scorn for a while because of a laundry list of issues (including pay-to-win schemes, loot boxes, treatment of employees, etc.) which is long enough to warrant its own dedicated wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Electronic_Arts

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EA doing any amount of shenanigans isn't making people sick, killing people, making people homeless or destitute. Their crimes are minor and petty.

So I guess that no other matter can receive attention if some people are homeless in the world?

Not so, but if you're to pick one company over all the others as being the most deserving of your ire, EA seems like a rather strange choice compared to, say, Nestlé [1], Chiquita [2], The Coca-Cola Company [3] or Shell [4]. One might even wonder if there isn't something wrong with your priorities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestl%C3%A9

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiquita#Criticism

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Coca-Cola

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_plc#Controversies

Well that's all well and good, but the ignorant masses who called EA the most evil company did so for basically the same reasons that you'd critique those other companies. Big corporations that put out productions designed to do nothing but take money from (often poor) people at the expense of their health.

To me, the constant criticism of gamers over the issue reads like shilling for that pathetic open letter EA put out in response. Classic deflection from a toxic entity.

Addictive gambling for kids is hardly minor and petty. Many children have spent thousands on EA Sports games.

TBQH Valve/Steam is a major factor in this gambling in games scene but gamers love them. So I don't think this is the real reason gamers have a problem with EA.

My defence with Valve is that at least on their stuff you most of time get stored credit. With the rest it is same, but it is actually drown the drain.

For me, it's their support for linux and their easy return policy for games that don't end up working. Gaben could light an orphanage on fire and I'd forgive him.

Which Valve game involves a pay-to-win mechanic that affects gameplay?

I don't know about pay to win, but TF2 and CS:Go have had extensive gambling scenes from what I've heard.

So EA also does not help starving children.

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