I'm sickened by the amount of responses in this thread that castigate EA for swallowing up and destroying smaller developers, using their size to drive competitors out of business, releasing inferior products while depending on their brand clout, and so on...
...and yet many of the same people who hate EA have no problem blithely accepting Microsoft, a company that has done all of these bad things and more, over and over in the market they dominate. Actions that affect our economy and our world, not just games.
Microsoft's very origins are based on a lie used to attach themselves to IBM's computer monopoly. The list of smaller developers that they've crushed since then through FUD, code theft, "partnership" then betrayal, and intimidation of PC manufacturers reads like the Vietnam Wall. The colossal amount of man-years of productivity lost to businesses due to bugs and security holes in their software over the years is uncountable. They were convicted of antitrust violations, and were only able to escape breakup because a corporate friendly administration was elected.
And now they're back to business as usual. Especially in the console market. Buying marketshare by incurring unrealistic losses. Trying to mask those losses with dubious accounting tricks. Spreading FUD to cover their own hypocritcal 180 degree change of direction from "only the power of the Xbox can allow developers to realize their dreams" to "we believe that software is the most important thing, while our competitors are focused on hardware power".
How anyone can rail against EA as a monolithic evil corporate entity and yet welcome Microsoft into their hobby with open arms is beyond me.
