Yesterday, EA made an awful mistake. And no, it wasn’t including a shocking amount of microtransactions in yet another game.
No, in a poorly executed attempt to be one of the cool kids and get in on a viral TikTok trend, they accidentally offended a massive amount of gamers and developers. Obviously, not exactly what they were going for there, but it’s happened now. Not even a Twitter edit function could save that.
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In case you somehow missed it, the now infamous tweet reads: “They’re a 10 but they only like playing single-player games.” As GAMINGbible’s Mark kindly explained yesterday, the trend they’re referencing here basically sees people describing someone as ‘a 10’ (out of 10) for their looks or personality, but then state something that they see as an awful flaw, which would clearly affect their scoring. So, EA basically just went straight for the throats of anyone who enjoys a nice single player experience. Uh oh.
As well as the wider internet’s annoyance, a number of prominent game developers have also weighed in on the action, roasting EA even further. As reported by GamesRadar+, this includes a bunch of former BioWare employees.
“As usual, EA jumps on a trend, misses the point, punches itself in the face,” tweeted the Dragon Age series’ writer David Gaider. “Absolutely. Tone. Deaf,” summarised Dragon Age’s creative director, Mike Laidlaw. Meanwhile, Aaryn Flynn, BioWare’s former general manager, issued EA with an important reminder: “You... make single-player games…”
EA are well aware of the backlash, of course - I dread to imagine how many notifications the poor people running their Twitter page have had to scroll through. They’ve tried to deflect the situation slightly: “Roast well deserved. We’ll take this L cause playing single player games actually makes them an 11,” they wrote in a later tweet. Whatever you say, EA, but the internet will not easily forget this.