Electronic Arts has made news in the gaming world quite a lot in the last year, and rarely for good things. From being named the worst company in America by voter choice in the annual poll held by the Consumerist to being blamed for the terrible Mass Effect 3 endings, to selling brand new games that had their ‘first-user’ unlock codes expired despite having never been used, EA has apparently been going out of their way to try and make money in ways that the fans of the games they own and make despise.
Despite all these negative things, the company is still one of the giants of the video gaming industry, owning a huge number of the best-selling franchises and having the ability to guarantee monopolies on sales of those games through its Origin service. It may have surprised some people, then, when it was revealed that Electronic Arts would be dropping off the Nasdaq-100 this year.
The list in question is an index of the 100 largest non-financial companies in the world. Dropping from this list is a partial indicator of exactly how badly the negative press has affected EA, along with their less-successful ventures over the course of the year. Time will tell if this trend will continue or if the gaming company will make serious changes to how it operates.
