Some examples:

The complaints against us last year were our support of SOPA (not true), and that they didn’t like the ending to Mass Effect 3.

Of course, the complaints were much larger than this, but EA likes to reduce it down to this. Even by last year, EA was destroying valuable gaming studios, putting out absolute trash, and driving Bioware into the ground (even notwithstanding the terrible Mass Effect 3).

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.

Yes, it is. Indeed, SimCity has mostly online features – but this does not mean that SimCity’s single player necessitated online. Period. Sure, SimCity may be structured around online play, but this does not mean that full-region play should still be online in every single case. When the entire gaming world points this out, simply saying “it’s not” does not refute their very valid points.

Simply put: SimCity is a terrible game that was clearly designed to be online in order to allow EA to capitalize on it down the road. In one fell swoop, EA managed to completely destroy all of the good will the SimCity series had built up over 20+ years.

Some claim there’s no room for Origin as a competitor to Steam. 45 million registered users are proving that wrong.

Except for the part where those 45 million users include transferred accounts from virtually every prior EA service that existed. “45 million users” is not a usage statistic. Moreover, it’s not as if people have a choice – those who want to play SimCity or Battlefield 3 are forced to use Origin.

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.

Again, this assumes that these gamers had a choice in the matter. True, though, this might actually be a point: some people don’t mind the micro-transaction model. That’s fine. But that is FAR from the reason that EA is the worst company in America.

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…

Just because one discrete mailing list says it does not mean that it is the primary reason people hate EA. This is, of course, a clever tactic – pointing to some sort of ridiculous assertion some idiot on the Internet said in order to minimize the validity of their opposition – but it doesn’t work.

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.

And here we get to the juicy meat of the argument: that is, EA’s use (again!) of homosexual rights as a sort of shield from criticism. Like Mass Effect 3, EA is using the homophobia argument to pretend as if they are valiant warriors of social justice. This is, of course, complete crap.

Sure, Mass Effect 3′s homosexual sex scenes were made fun of, but not because they involved two men. Rather, they were made fun of because they were terrible, featuring two men with the exact same skin textures (down to the same moles in the same locations!) in an awkwardly scripted setting that was so remarkably awkward that the video of the scene went viral. Homosexuality wasn’t the issue there, and it has never been the issue with EA. The issue is, and always has been, of quality, a word which EA has no familiarity with whatsoever.

This crippled gameplay is largely due to the fact that, for anti-piracy and moneymaking reasons reasons (though EA claims otherwise), EA decided to make the game online-only.  As a result, even when gamers do get to play their game, the game is severely crippled because EA has remotely disabled various parts of the game in order to help reduce load on their servers.  In other words, EA constructed a game in a way that would almost guarantee that gamers would have to pay EA more money in the future (via DRM or planned game obsolescence), and that very feature is making the entire game unplayable.  As a result, legitimate purchasers of the game are now either not able to play the game or are playing a game that has a significant number of features removed.

Of course, there are a lot of other issues with SimCity (ridiculously small city sizes, a lack of features from previous games, the region system basically just encouraging min/max gameplay, etc), but there’s no need to go into them, because few people will see those issues at all.  If you can’t play the game, you can’t see how bad it is, I suppose.

As I type, EA has currently told many of their advertisers to stop advertising the game, and it just made a press release offering to give affected gamers (i.e. all of those unable to play the game now) a “free” game of some sort.  Amazon.com has refused to sell the game any longer until the bugs are fixed, as they are likely tired of issuing refunds.  Numerous game reviewers (including Polygon) have retracted their otherwise glowing reviews (which were conducted on versions of SimCity specially set up for them that hid the aforementioned server issues) and have given the game incredibly poor reviews.  On top of it all, EA reps (through their “Origin” digital distribution service) have allegedly refused to give some gamers refunds and have threatened to ban users of the service who do credit card chargebacks for the game.

In other words, EA is in major damage control mode because they made a freaking terrible game.

But the problem is, EA doesn’t know how to do damage control.  They didn’t with Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age II, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the like.  For some stupid reason, EA thinks PR is tantamount to some sort of Soviet-era propaganda: EA likes to attempt to infiltrate game websites and spread pro-EA statements or deliberate disinformation in order to give the appearance that many gamers still support EA or are otherwise too disorganized to protest EA practices.

EA tries to create fake pro-SimCity Facebook posts and forgets to log out of their corporate account.

An example of this was just found today.  NeoGAF, one of the best video games forums on the Internet, discovered posts by a very new member called “Glassbox” (the engine SimCity runs on, a/k/a the worst disguise ever) that basically kept repeating the same message: Maxis General Manager Lucy Bradshaw was offering SimCity players free games.  While this statement was true, the account “Glassbox” posted it (and other pro-EA nonsense, as far as I can tell) incessantly, basically attempting to keep the pro-EA messages alive.

Naturally, NeoGAF, being used to these shenanigans, wasn’t impressed.  But the point remains that, rather than fixing the game itself, EA is still spending money trying to change public opinion regarding its terrible game.  I cannot exaggerate how bad of an idea this is.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Miron, why should heroin, cocaine and marijuana be legal?

Miron: The prohibition of drugs is the worst solution for preventing abuse. Firstly, it brings about a black market that is corrupt and costs human lives. Secondly, it constrains people who wouldn’t abuse drugs. Thirdly, prohibiting drugs is expensive.

[...]

SPIEGEL: One more time: do you think it would be good if legalization led to an increased consumption of drugs?

Miron: If you believe in anything that the Americans claim to believe in — freedom, individuality, personal responsibility — you have to legalize drugs. The maxim should be that you’re allowed to do it if you’re not harming anyone else. There is an assumption that you’re harming someone when you take drugs, but the scientific data doesn’t support this hypothesis.

And the best part:

SPIEGEL: Why isn’t anyone putting your suggestions into practice?

Miron: Many thousands of people working in government posts would lose their jobs as a result of legalization. The rehab centers would lose a lot of customers because many of the people in rehab were forced to go there by the judicial system. The people who build prisons also have an interest in there being large numbers of inmates. In addition to that, the church doesn’t like drugs and the church is powerful in America.

Yet again, crony capitalism governs legal doctrine.

Grab ‘n’ Go, the same chain that got in trouble for barista prostitution back in 2009 is in hot water again now after another two-month undercover investigation found that three “bikini baristas” were allegedly stripping at espresso stands.
The Grab ‘n’ Go employees were arrested for violating city cabaret law in Everett, Wa., reports KOMO News, after cops had kept tabs on the coffee stands for two months.

“Keeping tabs.”

The Microsoft Surface Pro, the new flagship Windows 8 device that launched on Saturday, is reportedly sold out in many retail locations across the country.

Great success, right? Not so fast. Apparently, as reported by ZDnet, that fact might be misleading. In general, of course, selling out on the day of a product launch is good thing. But not if it only sold out because there weren’t enough Surface Pros available.

And that seems to be the problem here. Apparently, stores around the country only received a handful of Surface Pros, so they quickly sold out, leaving lots of angry customers with empty hands.

I’m not sure if I think this is a good plan or not. On one hand, Microsoft is smart in that they aren’t manufacturing a billion of these expensive tablets and watching as only 10% sell to the high end market. This strategy also ensures that customer demand is always higher than supply, which is generally considered a good thing in the tech world (even though you always end up with miffed customers). On the other hand, this could have been taken to an extreme – I suspect that Microsoft shipped out an insanely low number of tablets for this sort of trick, meaning that this is more smoke and mirrors than marketing strategy.

Either way, I’m eager to see if Microsoft can actually make Windows 8 a thing. I sure as hell don’t like it on desktops (and I’ve already gone through that UEFI-disabling nonsense a few times to get it off), but I’m intrigued at its application in the tablet market.

The PS4 should have:

• A ridiculously simple architecture. No cell processors. No fancy crap. Stick to what developers know. This will make programming easier for everyone, and will allow the PS4 to outstrip Microsoft’s next console easily.  The only reason why games like Bayonetta were worse on the PS3 is because devs had a ridiculously hard time understanding it and porting to it.
• Gakai-based backwards compatibility.  Sony shouldn’t bother packaging old processors in a new package.  Allow backwards compatibility through streaming through Gakai or something. Sure, this is technically a form of always-on DRM, and it would prevent people from playing games they have in hard copy, but it would save some effort in terms of hardware design.
  
• Gakai-based demos. Not only could you control the availability of the demo, but it would prevent unnecessary downloading/installation.
• …and maybe software-based emulation.  If feasible, Sony’s new console should emulate – and upscale/AA/AF/etc — both PS1 games and PS2 games inserted into the disc tray, if there is one.  There is no excuse for not doing this, considering how easily it could be done with reasonably powerful hardware.
• Open development software and an open Playstation Store.  Sony needs to steal the Greenlight model: allow anyone to submit stuff for the Playstation Store, and allow anyone to develop rudiamentary games for the PS4.  Obviously, don’t let anyone submit anything, and don’t let the store become the next XBLIG ghetto – but do allow an influx of cheap, fun, easily developed games.
  
• A unified approach to friends, in-game voice chat, and more.  Connect it all and make it simple, like Steam.  I should be able to push a PS button and initiate a voice call while playing a game that does not support voice chat.
• Bluetooth controller support from anybody.  Obviously, keep the Dualshock design, but allow for some variation.  Make weird-ass controllers, “retro” controllers, etc.  Allow variation and experimentation.  Hell, “accidentally” let people in your app store develop apps allowing people to use 360 controllers on the PS3.

The PS4 should not have:

• Social media integration. No-one ever wants to sit on Facebook on their consoles. We all have computers and phones. Stop bothering with this.
  
• A price point higher than $400. This would be too much. $599 was a scary price for the PS3, and anything close to it will be too scary for the frugal consumer. Keep the console cheap.
• A slow blu-ray drive. Seriously. No mandatory installations. Put new games on an SD card or something — anything — with faster load times.
• A prohibition on used games. This alienates gamers and exploits the market. Do not do this, ever.
• Integrated Move support. The Move was to late in the market, and it really does little for anyone. Don’t bother with it. Make it an option, not a core feature.

Still, this hasn’t stopped Blackbery from trying to save the Blackberry by making Blackberry 10, an admittedly nice-looking operating system (slash phone) that apparently does little other than what other brands have been doing for a while.  It’s pretty much what you would expect any generic programmer to make: a sort of iPhone OS-esque Android-esque Windows Phone-esque amalgamation of pretty things that don’t do anything remarkably new or original.

On one level, I feel sorry for Blackberry.  Back when Blackberry was RIM, and back when they were dominant in the market, they did a lot to enhance the smartphone market and to keep business people across the world connected.  Problem is, now that technology has advanced, it isn’t exactly rocket science to make a phone that can receive and send e-mail.  Blackberry has some pretty damn powerful competition nowadays, which unquestionably has made their lives a living hell.

On the other hand, Blackberry had a monopoly, and they lost it due to innovation.  Insofar as they were stagnant, it is their own fault they lost the proverbial cell phone race – after all, there was nothing stopping them from making a direct competitor to the iPhone quickly and efficiently.  In a way, Blackberry behaved like the stereotypical monopolist: it got a huge dominant position in a certain market, it sat around on its rear doing nothing important for a while, and now it’s getting burned to a crisp because technology has made competition easier.

In any event, let’s be realistic here: Blackberry is going to die pretty quickly.  Unless Blackberry 10 does something unique – hell, anything unique – Blackberry is pretty much going to survive only as long as select organizations remain behind the times.  That’s a pretty sad fact.

In the run-up to the final CleanIT conference in Brussels on Wednesday, the group published its final report, (PDF) a 30-page document outlining its final recommendations. This document and the conference are the culmination of a two-year, €326,000 ($440,000) study grant from the EU’sPrevention of and Fight against Crime Programme (PDF). (Ars editor Cyrus Farivar will be moderating this conference, and his travel and lodging have been paid for out of CleanIT’s budget.)

The final report has shed some of its earlier outrageous ideas—such as OS and browser-level monitoring as a condition of selling software products in the EU.

Nevertheless, CleanIT now advocates for increased cooperation between EU member states and argues that governments “should take an active role in reducing terrorist use of the Internet.” In addition, Internet companies should “state clearly in their terms and conditions that they will not tolerate terrorist use of the Internet on their platforms, and how they define terrorism.”

To do this, governments and Web companies will rely in part on users, thanks to a proposed “browser-based reporting mechanism [that] could be developed to allow end users to report terrorist use of the Internet.” Translation: a big “flag this site for terrorist activity” button in your favorite Web browser.

In other words, CleanIT is recommending that people voluntarily report “terrorist” websites for whatever reason with a handy-dandy Big Brother button on their browser.  Riiiight.

The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide.

The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was taken over early Saturday and replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago “a line was crossed.”

The message read in part:

Citizens of the world,
Anonymous has observed for some time now the trajectory of justice in the United States with growing concern. We have marked the departure of this system from the noble ideals in which it was born and enshrined. We have seen the erosion of due process, the dilution of constitutional rights, the usurpation of the rightful authority of courts by the “discretion” or prosecutors. We have seen how the law is wielded less and less to uphold justice, and more and more to exercise control, authority and power in the interests of oppression or personal gain.”

The hackers say they’ve infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public.

Four of the nation’s largest banks — Wells Fargo, Fifth Third Bank, U.S. Bank and Regions Bank — are involved in high-interest, short-term loans that may not always be called “payday” loans but might as well be. Thus, a group of five U.S. senators have asked regulators to put a stop to the practice altogether.

For those of you who do not know, payday lending is basically the activity of making short term, extremely high interest loans against the future paycheck(s) of a consumer. As one might expect, these loans are often taken out by poorer customers, who use them to get (and spend) cash quickly for both necessary expenses (hospital bills, etc) and unnecessary expenses (expensive stuff they could not otherwise afford). The problem with these loans, at least according to the Consumerist, is that this dynamic can quickly trap the poor and stupid into a cycle of fees and debt:

Up front, the borrower pays a fee — ranging from $7.50 to $10 per $100 borrowed. The next time the borrower receives a direct-deposited payment, the amount of the loan is taken out by the bank. But if the deposited funds aren’t sufficient, the bank takes the money anyway, which can trigger overdraft fees and additional interest on overdrafted funds.

In other words, because the poor are the only ones taking these ridiculous loans, it is remarkably easy for them to default and get into a cycle of overdraft fees and debt that constitutes a high percentage of the loan’s principal.

Of course, most people find this unconscionable:

As for the authors’ contention that payday lending fills a need for America’s poor, Consumers Union’s senior policy counsel Pamela Banks says there are better ways to meet the needs of these borrowers.

“Just because consumers need and use credit doesn’t mean they’re fair game for lenders to charge three-digit interest rates, or hit people with pie-in-the sky fees that bear no relationship to actual costs,” explains Banks. “We all know too many stories about abusive practices that trap consumers in debt, rather than help them through the rough patches. That’s why regulatory oversight of payday lending, overdrafts, and other financial products is so important, to make sure that all players in the marketplace follow the rules.”

I like the Consumers Union. But, to be honest, they are kinda wrong here.  If not wrong, they are simply viewing this issue from an understandably biased perspective.

Yes, at some sort of normative/moral level, high interest loans and high fees are wrong. But this does not make them abnormal or plainly evil. Almost by definition, payday loans are incredibly risky loans that necessitate high interest rates — maybe not three digit interest rates, but still high rates. Moreover, because these loans are so ridiculously risky (as lending to the poor is almost by definition always risky), high fees are justified in light of the risk the bank takes. Given the transactional costs of incredibly small loans made to an incredibly risky subset of the public, one cannot blame banks for behaving the way they do – at least in some sense such high fees and interest rates are expected, if not demanded, by the market.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying payday lending is by itself correct in any moral or ethical sense. At some level, I understand why many senators — both at the federal and state level — might want to curb this behavior. But the problem is, these senators are ignoring the underlying problem. The reason why a lot of these loans are so risky — and thus why the loans have such stupidly high interest rates and fees — is because the poor are infamously bad at managing their finances and because the poor are often direct victims of a bad economy. If we want to make short-term loans of small amounts of money readily available to the American public, we must find a way to ensure that these loans are as riskless as feasible in order to make them more accessible to those who legitimately need them.

How can we make such inherently risky loans less risky? That’s probably a question too complicated to answer simply. At some level, we need to begin to teach Americans how to manage their finances, an aspect of education woefully ignored by many schools. At another level, we need to break our cultural habit of conspicuous consumption – where even the most impoverished of society want a smart phone, we have a problem. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need to begin to fix our entire economy from the ground up: where the poor can get well-paying jobs and can break themselves free from being impoverished, payday loans may no longer be necessary (or at least they will be less necessary).  In other words, there’s an aspect of this problem both attributable to the economy and to the consumers themselves, and to fix this issue, we must address both rather than blaming banks for behaving in a profit-maximizing manner.

Still, the point remains: payday loans are remarkably market-savvy, not malicious. They are simply a symptom of a lot of other issues in our economy that need fixing. Acting as if banks are twirling their proverbial evil mustaches ignores the realities of the markets, the economy, and the general world we live in.