Electronic Arts’ terrible, no-good, very bad social media day
Video game publishers are at it again.
You may remember that last year I wrote about the epic implosion of ActivisionBlizzard triggered by a systemic culture of misogyny, harassment and worker intimidation that lasted for years. It was just the latest in a string of reputational disasters, but was also the most egregious and highlighted the worst aspects of an industry notorious for mistreating workers of all genders.
We’re talking about an industry valued at more than $170 billion in 2020—making it worth more than the North American sports and film industries combined. You’d think they’d have their act together by this point. You would be wrong.
That makes what I’m about to say even more embarrassing, albeit not nearly as bad as previous transgressions like the one above.
“If it’s in the game, it better be multiplayer or we’ll tweet about it.” — Electronic Arts (probably)
Electronic Arts is one of the most recognized video game publishers on the planet. Its sports division’s tagline, “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game,” is known to millions of FIFA, Madden and NHL players. It is also, historically speaking, one of the most disliked brands in the world. It won back-to-back championships in the early 2010s courtesy of Consumerist’s annual “Worst Company in America” survey, beating the likes of Bank of America, Ticketmaster and Comcast. ]
It’s worth mentioning that gamers, by and large, are a passionate bunch—and are themselves plagued by a culture of toxicity—and there are several brands that probably deserve the title more than EA. But the publisher, for its part, has done plenty to remain competitive, earning a reputation for exploiting gamers—many of them children—with lootboxes and pay-to-win business models.
Like many others, it has been accused of forcing employees to work triple-digit hours in the weeks leading up to a launch (known industry-wide as “crunch”). And in recent years, the immense popularity of live-service, online-only games like Destiny 2 has drawn the eyes of many publishers and developers, EA included, for their long shelf life and ability to capture a lot of recurring revenue through microtransactions and expansions over several years. That pursuit often comes at the expense of single player, story-driven games that are often one-time purchases and have a defined beginning, middle and end. EA alone has canceled more than a dozen games in the last few years, rushed others to market with disastrous results, and forced several beloved developers to adopt online models even though their strengths lie firmly in single player games.
So yeah, gamers are always looking for a reason to take some energy out on their favorite punching bag—and EA just gave them an easy target.
In July, EA’s official Twitter account posted a tweet using a popular-but-rather-tasteless meme format: [Insert pronoun] is a 10 but [insert personality flaw here that proves your point].
Here’s the actual tweet:
They’re a 10 but they only like playing single-player games
— Electronic Arts (@EA) June 30, 2022
You can see the problem. A publisher reviled for abandoning single player games—yet which, ironically, still releases many of them every year and relies on them for a healthy chunk of revenue, is doing the social media equivalent of punching itself in the face. Quit hitting yourself, EA, there are plenty of people willing to do it for you.
The reaction, even internally, was swift and without mercy. Many executives at EA took their turns. Here’s the reaction of Vince Campella, the CEO of EA studio Respawn, which was responsible for the critically acclaimed “Jedi: Fallen Order” Star Wars game a few years ago:
🤦🏼♂️
— Vince Zampella (@VinceZampella) July 1, 2022
According to Kotaku, the tweet was circulating around the publisher’s various studios and offices within minutes, with many execs expressing their outrage at what was essentially a slight toward their staff and the games they work on.
Now this is where it gets interesting.
It later came to light that the person responsible for the tweet didn’t actually work at EA. That can only mean that the brand’s social media is outsourced to an agency. A source told USA Today, “I’m 99 percent sure the person who posted the tweet and their manager don’t even know about the single player games comment from a decade ago,” referring to a comment from EA’s CEO at the time that single player games “were finished,” which of course isn’t the case.
The same source also said, “They’re all new and most of them, to my knowledge, aren’t really game industry people. The person who posted that tweet didn’t know and wasn’t supported properly to ensure something like this didn’t happen.”
Talk about a failure at every level of an agency-client relationship. There’s a lot to unpack there, but my point is this: Find an agency who takes the time to understand your brand, its history and its audiences. Expertise and experience are the anchors of great relationships and results.
It’s a clear warning to every brand that even the most well-known, highest-earning companies can make a mistake like this, the consequences of which can last much longer than 280 characters.
The tweet ultimately prompted a series of roundtable discussions to assess the damage and discuss the brand’s response to its own self-inflicted injuries. One idea that gained traction early was to get every other brand-owned Twitter account to joyously jump in the dumpster fire and roast the tweet like a beef tenderloin.
It was only after several employees pointed out that such an approach “would just reinforce the narrative online that EA’s own studios and teams hate the company” that the higher-ups decided to apologize. But even that was cringeworthy:
Roast well deserved. We’ll take this L cause playing single player games actually makes them an 11. https://t.co/PNg4FKOgfB
— Electronic Arts (@EA) July 1, 2022
Another lesson: When your brand is under fire and in the crosshairs, don’t get cute. It won’t do you any favors.
