Former EA exec still angry about Worst Company award over Mass Effect 3 ending

Peter Moore is one of the most memorable executives the game industry has ever seen. He presided over the Dreamcast at Sega of America and the Xbox at Microsoft and helped stoke the fires of the console wars. Moore's final stop was leading EA's sports division when the publisher was voted the Worst Company in America in 2012 and 2013.

"We were voted, two years in a row, the Worst Company in America, because of the ending of Mass Effect," Moore explains. "I mean, seriously, this is where BP is polluting the Gulf of Mexico – sorry, the Gulf of America. Bank of America has brought down the global economy with subprime mortgages.

But fucking Colonel Shepard dies in Mass Effect 3, and that makes us the Worst Company in America. So we went through that." The backlash was broader than a single character's fate. The awards also targeted EA over the controversial always-online launch of SimCity in 2013, the decision to abandon Steam for a proprietary app, and concerns about free-to-play games and microtransactions.

United States

peter moore, electronic arts, mass effect, simcity, worst company, microtransactions, always online, steam, colonel shepard, 2013