What makes me want to engage so heavily with media? Well, one question really, why? Why do so many large companies with excess money seem to neglect their PR departments, and still lay off workers after posting record-breaking revenue? How did a company like EA, a titan of its industry, come to the idea to post their infamous ‘pride and accomplishment’ post during an AMA? I want to know where these poor decisions come from, and how one poor decision impacts the decisions of adjacent businesses. As an example, let’s look at that EA post again. For context, a recent game of theirs had come under fire for seemingly encouraging additional spending of money in order to progress in the game. Of course many people were upset, and one Reddit user asked why important characters seemed overpriced. EA’s response will go down in infamy,

This comment now sits as the most downvoted (disliked) in Reddit’s history. The post is so obviously disingenuous, and trying to push people away from the simple fact that EA is a business first, an entertainer second. People were quick to catch on to EA’s greed, and the phrase ‘sense of pride and accomplishment’ was buried in negative connotation, as it sits to this very day.

This post is monumentally bad, and is one of the most blatantly anti-consumer messages seen in popular media in the past few years. What astounds me however, is that this comes from one of the wealthiest, most successful companies in its respective industry, so how did it happen? That’s the question I want to answer with this education, but spread over a broader understanding of media itself. How can so many companies make similar mistakes?