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Pachter Believes EA Worst Company Award Is Silly, Calls Vocal Minority Of Mass Effect 3 Fans Upset With Ending 'Whiners'

It’s been a busy week for Electronic Arts, one of the leading game publishers in the world today. The Consumerist.com, inundated with votes by irate Mass Effect 3 fans, ended up awarding its annual Worst Company in America award to EA, beating out companies that actually impacted the world in negative ways like Bank of America.

“I think the Worst Company award is pretty silly,” said Michael Pachter, videogame analyst, Wedbush Morgan Securities. “It’s not particularly scientific, and given that gamers are far more vocal (and bitter) than any other broad consumer group, it’s surprising to me that a game publisher doesn’t end up at the top of the list every year.  I can’t think of anything that EA does that is bad enough to warrant this distinction.  They sell entertainment products that are better than the average, at competitive prices.”

Despite the success that a series of Mass Effect 3 stories that have run in Forbes over the past few weeks, Pachter doesn’t believe that the backlash over the game’s ending is very large at all.

“As far as I can tell, it was a vocal minority of several thousand, but given that the game shipped 3.5 million units and likely sold through 2.8 million, I can’t believe that the backlash comprised more than 10 percent of consumers, and think it’s more likely closer to 1 percent,” said Pachter. “That incident was a great example of what a whiny group gamers are in general; while I respect their rights to express their dissatisfaction, the FTC complaint was over the top, and it is what got all of the media attention.”

Despite the negative press that the Mass Effect 3 ending generated with some gamers, Pachter believes EA will come through in the end unscathed. After all, BioWare’s Mass Effect 3 has received over 75 perfect scores and won over 50 awards from critics around the world.

“EA handled it fine,” said Pachter. “They treated their customers with respect, addressed the situation directly and promptly, and are offering free DLC to satisfy those who hated the ending. I shudder to think what will happen if gamers don’t like the new ending choices.”

Pachter does believe that the vocal minority of “whiners” who don’t like what creative developers conjure in their interactive entertainment franchises could ultimately hurt the game industry.

“The industry should give customers what they want, but it should not manage to the highest common denominator,” said Pachter. “The reason we get games like Max Payne and Alan Wake only every six years or so is that the developers strive for perfection, and whiny gamers are only going to cause their beloved games to take even longer between episodes. The BioWare guys are prolific, but if they slow down development of future games to make sure that everybody is happy, consumers will have even fewer choices, and will have something new to complain about. Game development is a balance between delighting consumers and making a profit, and if everyone focuses on guaranteeing 100 percent satisfaction, development costs will rise unacceptably, and nobody will make any money.”

At the end of the day, the old adage that there’s no such thing as negative publicity could end up holding true for EA and its Mass Effect franchise.

“I am certain that the ‘fan outrage’ has not hurt sales, and perhaps has helped sales,” said Pachter. “Unfortunately, appeasing the whiners here will only encourage fans to be even more vocal next time, so the lingering issue is that gamers will feel even more entitled and empowered than they have in the past, and will be even more demanding about changes to future games.”

Hollywood directors don’t go back and change movies when fans complain — just look at the tinkering George Lucas did that went against what fans wanted, so any precedent set by EA and BioWare to appease a group of fans, no matter how large or small, could ultimately be detrimental to both the creativity and health of the game industry moving forward. In the end, EA is offering a free DLC ending to all gamers with its “Extended Cut” this summer – something it didn’t have to do. It’s impossible to make everyone happy. But looking at the sales of the game and the overwhelming critical reviews and scores from trusted gaming sites, BioWare didn’t offend everyone with its ending. And it’s offering additional free content through two DLCs (so far), to extend the $60 investment that gamers made with the third game.

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  • Kiba Kiba 2 years ago

    The actions of ONE bad game cannot justify the “Award” which I feel more corrupt companies do deserve along with large fines and jail time, but back to EA – the company has driven many of the trends and although I think the first DLC that cost money was Halo 2 multiplayer map pack in 2004-2005, EA has taken over hyping a game and charging for DLC that “completes” games to a whole new level. the Sims is probably the largest video game money pit that if you want the “complete” Sims experience, it would require close to $1000 to purchase all the expansions, stuff packs, and the new hybrid “packs”. Dead Space was another example of EA interfering with a successful game franchise. And please do not get me started on the Call of Duty franchise. Customers who purchase EA titles are not particularly choosing the release company, but hoping that the release company did not damage the game beyond customer satisfaction. With so few game distributors available, the gamers don’t have much of a choice and we have been accepting that fact for some time. We are simply stating we have had enough. I guess it would be like living in a small town where there is only one or two restaurants to eat at but the food continues to get worse but they keep raising prices. (sounded better in my head).

    I am not disagreeing that there are more deserving companies, but calling these gamers “whiners” is like saying anyone who lost money in the stock market a whiner. People put money into their hobbies, but when the hobby no longer provides an acceptable cost/benefit ratio – the hobby becomes conflicted and complicated. I have played Mass Effect 1,2, and working on 3 – but i have noticed that not much has changed since “knights of the Old Republic” which is what I compare rpg style games and Bioware games to. It only makes sense that a company should work to improve the product to remain successful. Why should gamers be forced to “accept” what ever a company produces? Just because games are seen as “juvenile” in our society, does not mean that it is any less important as a hobby or business. There is so much more I bring to this argument of “whiners” but I leave it where it is.

    Just remember the next time you purchase something for your personal enjoyment and are disappointed. Try to keep yourself from joining other “whiners” who put the same amount of money and time into that hobby and are dissatisfied by their investment. Also, refrain from “whining” when the company realizes they have made some serious mistakes and offers you a digital “cookie” to shut you up, while still not fixing the source of the problem.

    Calling these gamers “whiners” displays your bigot opinion and lack of knowledge in the gaming industry. Where are your sources of these “!%” of “whiners” and how can you account for those who share the same ideas but do not voice it. Also remember the gaming industry is skewed and driven by money – even the awards and reviews that are given.

    Games are more than a hobby for some, make mistakes on developing a Starcraft game and go to South Korea and call them “whiners”, it much like being on a soccer team in Columbia and missing the winning goal. This is a serious industry with lots of revenue potential, for a company like EA to exist for as long it has with it’s current business practices is a feat and earns an achievement, of wait, this article represents that.

  • Are Pedersen Are Pedersen 2 years ago

    I don’t understand why you bother paraphrasing this guy. He’s never made an accurate prediction about video games in his life, his status as some sort of guru is debatable at best.

  • Dylan Evans Dylan Evans 2 years ago


    So just to be clear EA would rather pump out low quality titles yearly than work towards high quality well made games, gotcha mike.

  • Kalos Kalos Kalos Kalos 2 years ago

    If openly insulting your customers is considered respect… that would actually explain a lot of why Bioware/EA doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on. Also, considering that they’ve leaving in all of the most-criticised aspects of the ending, I fail to see how that counts as satisfying those who hated the ending. Also also, there are no new ending choices.

    Did you even read Bioware’s press release?

  • Alex Corosov Alex Corosov 2 years ago

    Now look here. If someone paid for a computer, got the computer and it didn’t work as advertised, they’d take it to where they got it from and complain. Say this place is Future Shop. Now, imagine if this person was refused a refund on their falsely advertised machine and then Future Shop’s head office made a press release about how this person was so extremely self-entitled for wanting what she paid for.

    This is what EA and Bioware are doing to their consumers. Whether it be one person or 80 thousand people, the motif is still unchanged. The customer is always right, not always entitled. I want what I thought I was paying for, not some bullshit that EA and Bioware want to cram down my throat. I am -paying- for all the content on my disc. I’m not buying a license to use the product, I’m buying a physical copy that I own and by law can do whatever the fuck I want with it.

    EA and all the journalists and people they have on their payroll call me entitled for being a smart consumer who tries to get the most out of what he buys. That is more than enough of a reason for them to be the worst company in the world .

  • Archoral Archoral 2 years ago

    By using the sales of ME3 to justify his stance he’s not helping his argument. The fact is that the most “Hyped” games always sell the large majority of their sales within the first few weeks, and after that sales hit a low very, very quickly. This is because the people who are interested in it buy the game early on, either not relying on reviews or only relying on reviews, rather than consumer feedback. The video game industry is an industry where a bad game, it’s it hyped, will hurt future release sales more than itself. If Bioware doesn’t please their consumers their next games won’t do nearly as good because of it.

    But then again Pachter is well known for not being very bright so it’s no surprise he’d say something so silly.

  • warning old men warning old men

  • Tom Hicks Tom Hicks 2 years ago

    Something got garbled in the first clause:


    Despite the success OF? a series of Mass Effect 3 stories that have run in Forbes over the past few weeks

    How are you measuring the success of the series of stories? A lot of people looked at them? They generated a lot of comments? Bioware addressed it and agreed with it?

  • This guy once claimed a PS3 is more powerful than a $2000 computer…how does he have any credibility?


  • But it’s not just this one game.

    EA has been treating their customers like crap for years now.

  • BibbyKotock BibbyKotock 2 years ago


    Oh man look at page 2 its almost like he gets paid directly by EA for this stuff.

  • macrorke macrorke 2 years ago

    Pachter usually knows what he is talking about but he is plain wrong in this regard. No way can a business balance rampant DLC and “artistic integrity”, you can have one or the other. I am not saying that making money isn’t part of the artistic process but when you knowingly make content DLC (Disc Locked Content) your argument of “artistic integrity” falls pretty flat.

  • Chad Reichle Chad Reichle 2 years ago

    This Michael Pachter guy sounds pretty whiny. What’s up with that? Does he ever do anything but complain?

  • Wai Chi Lau Wai Chi Lau 2 years ago

    Again, another person who knows nothing about the ending, perhaps even nothing about ME series, came out and talk about the ending, just to get more media exposure.

    There are 2 objective problems in ME3 ending that have nothing to do with personal feelings such as “I like it or not”.
    1. Contradicting facts in the story plot. It’s just like bugs/glitches of a program. No author should do that.
    2. Bioware broke their promise. False advertisement. Someone lied.

    Yet, EA/Bioware used “Artistic Integrity” to cover up their faults.
    They frame their very fans (those who knows/follows ME series enough to notice the ending’s problem) as “Enemy of Arts”, just to save their own asses.

    Bioware, if you are reading this, I hope you know, you are in fact turning your fans love into hatred, damaging you root of success.

  • John Crest John Crest 2 years ago

    Who is this ignorant douchebag? And why is anything he says news at all?

    This clueless deluded fool doesn’t even know what he is talking about. I’ll bet if you asked him what Mass Effect is about he would say “killing dragons”.

  • Omari Evans Omari Evans 2 years ago

    This article looks very biased. You’re only using Pachter as your main source to defend EA and backing up all of his statements with their sales figures. Even if the gamers are just a bunch of ‘whiny’ nerds, why are you so eager to call them whiny every chance you get without trying to show their perspective on things? And then you’re assuming that most of the people that voted for EA were mad only because of the Mass Effect 3 ending. Either way, its just a poll, its not like it will make a difference if EA won worst company of the year or Bank of America. The fight against corporate greed does not take place through a poll. And its foolish to criticize the voters on their decision when they could very well dislike Bank of America just as much as EA.

  • Aaron Collom Aaron Collom 2 years ago

    I agree Pachter, George Lucas really made changes that counted despite the outcry of the fanbase. I was so happy to see a new and glossy 3d x-wing over the old and matted look of the original model shots.

  • Aaron Collom Aaron Collom 2 years ago

    p.s. the first dlc may be “free,” but it is the equivalent of a Free-to-play game adding more items to the store for “free”. They are adding content that they can make money on sold in packs. How could he miss that? Or is he specifically avoiding that ME multiplayer is basically an on disc Free-to-Play spin off?

  • Joshua Clark Joshua Clark 2 years ago

    Worst Company in America they deserve especailly after EA decided to use Origin as Spyware to rape information out of their customers’ computers without due process or any law enforcement agency with a warrent to back them up!

  • Anon Anon 2 years ago

    This guy is pretty off in his conclusions. First of all expecting that *ending* of a game will affect sales of that same game is plain silly. Naturally you must first buy a game to get disappointed by its ending, but I’d be far, far less self-confident when it comes to sales of ME3 DLCs or future ME franchrise in general.

    Second – EA by no means won this “award” (just) because of ME3 ending but also for countless negative and arrogant moves like pushing in their digital service, including non-senses like forcing you to start BF3 from browser or hard-code language based on your IP address. Consuming and destroying great companies since Origin times (now I mean the real great Origin ex-developer), selling day-one DLCs, destroying game concepts (DA1->DA2 anyone?), the list would be just countless.

    The only valid point I see is, that what EA does is far, far less important than what other companies do. Not even the “they make good games” argument is valid, as they just buy good developers which all somehow mysteriously then enter an inevitable spiral of decline under their “capable leadership”, Bioware being only the last victim of it.

    And his call for more tons of bad games to make profit only shows me it’s just one more “white-collar” opinion, shared by people who don’t even know the products they sell and all what matters to them is *profit*. The very right of them of course but just one more reason to actively keep EA purchases to minimum, what they somehow make which each of their release easier and easier.

  • Mr. New Vegas Mr. New Vegas 2 years ago

    Exactly how many times have the gaming community created such a storm over three different “endings” and infinitesimally small differences(explosion colour)? The answer is none. They dropped the fucking ball with this one, and we are understandably angry.
    Also, what the hell does “video game analyst” even mean? To use an over-used statement, he seems like an Old Man Running the World, who doesn’t play videogames for fun. Every other critique in the industry has acknowledged the flimsy ending.

  • Aulis Vaara Aulis Vaara 2 years ago

    On pretty much every vote, the people who were disappointed with the ending was at least 75% that I saw.


    That’s just a load of bollocks. As if EA hasn’t impacted the whole landscape of gaming negatively, and even the world. Their tactics are just as greedy as those of Bank Of America. Using complete ripoffs for DLC or even putting must haves up as day one DLC. Furthermore they have ruined at least several franchises already. E.g. Command And Conquer, Earth And Beyond, Dragon Age, and now Mass Effect.

    And there far more flaws with Mass Effect 3 than just the ending. Missing storylines, poor alternative storylines, non-impact of previous choices … Most people simply didn’t notice because the Paragon story is actually well done, and most people play that one first, but if you play a renegade, the game is rather disappointingly similar. Sometimes with explanations that don’t even make sense.

    Also, the guy’s an ass. You don’t insult your customers, even if you think they are whiny. When I was younger, there was a saying: customer is king. It’s time that this saying is put back into practice…

  • Jesus Morales Jesus Morales 2 years ago

    The backlash on the internet over this huge, bigger then anything I remember seeing so I have a hard time believing it was some “whiny” minority. I also think that even many people who hated the ending think the FTC complaint was ridiculous and the FTC should throw it out, not waste valuable time on it. Pointing to how much the game has sold doesn’t help. Most of those people bought it prior to all this controversy, how many will buy it now? I’m no expert, but the fact that the price of ME3 is dropping on Amazon doesn’t seem a good sign to me. Plus, Bioware has to think about the future. How much goodwill have they lost with all this? Will this affect pre-orders of their games in the future? Will people buy another Mass Effect title or avoid it? For a guy who is supposed to be an analyst, he’s looking at this entirely too much in the short-term. Plus, citing all the scores doesn’t help much. Many will admit that it’s overall a good game. Furthermore, this whole incident has revealed a sharp divide between gamers and the video game journalists. Up until now I had thought of them as largely on our side, but now it appears they’re actually large on the companies’ side. The one thing I agree with him is that development costs are too high already and I wouldn’t want to see them rise. That is a challenge that is going to have to be met one way or the other. However, I don’t foresee the internet trying to demand how each and every game is made, if I’m wrong on that point and it comes to pass, I’ll admit I was wrong. I just don’t see it though. This was one game people were invested in, I don’t think they’re interested in dictating how each and every game is done.

  • Jason Lamb Jason Lamb 2 years ago



  • Pachter is a complete tool for someone who live off “prediction”. Actually scratch that, tools are useful he is not.

    The so called “vocal minority” of a couple of thousands (nearing 60k but whos counting right?), are thouse who buy CE, pre-orders, gadgets and what else the franchise have to offer, t-shirts, hats and what not.

    The 2.8 million he speaks off are the mass market who buy something they see and might like or not, play it and moves on. They dont stick around tho some might after playing a wonderful game and thats why forums exist and fan sites, and more often if they dont like it they just shrug it off and see what else there is on the market.

    The core fan base is the gamer that frequently seek out new information on a game, joins a community, have opinion and offers feedback to the creators. They become a person interest for EaWare because these individuals will pre-order and do everything else i mention above. They are not to be considered a “minority”, they are thousands of gamers who the creators can bond with and in the process earn money off em (not in a greedy way).

    These gamers give hard facts on work with a game and what dosnt. What they like and what they dont like, devs take notice of all this and improve next time. CDPR is a good example of what a company should do, and it works.

    Either way. This Patcher fellow is a paided lobbiest half the time he speaks up about something.

  • Skyre Skyre 2 years ago

    I wonder if Pachter realises that most people that didn’t like it either returned it or just packed it away. Just because only a certain amount of people and vocal about it, doesn’t mean they are the only ones that did not like it.

    That being said, 75 positive reviews and 50 awards from people like Pachter…goes to show how out of touch these “games analysts” and “reviewers” are with their audience.

    That being said, Pachter, I have not insulted you, so I do not see why you think you have the right to insult me. Please, for the sake of your career, keep your obviously ignorant mouth shut. Cheers.

  • Skyre Skyre 2 years ago

    People *are* vocal (sorry, typo).

    Also, I think these games “reviewers” and “analysts” need a change of career. Is it not their job to notice these things and point them out?

    Yeah, sure, ME3 for awards and whatnot…but we all know the pressure those awards givers and reviewers are under, in terms of having to appease the largest gaming company in the world. They are hardly biased.

    If a reviewer had done their job and told me about the ending, I would not have purchased ME3. But all people like me had was biased “positive” reviews and PR promises (that ended out being lies).

  • bugmenot000 bugmenot000 2 years ago

    Oh, come on, are we listening to what idiotic astrologers like Pachter say now?.

    If anything has less idea of what’s happening inside the gaming industry than Pachter, the universe will implode.

    He spews 50% lies (see what he says about ME3) and 50% inventions. Please, STOP PUBLISHING HIS DRIVEL.

  • cndblank cndblank 2 years ago

    So customers asking for what they were promised are whiners.

    How enlighten.

    I’ll give you the EA company rating, but games are not art.
    Games are entertainment and the game companies should give the customers what they find entertaining.

    And like Art, each person has a different view on what they find entertaining.

    Like a novel, a good game takes the player where they want to go. A great game can take the player where the game designer wants to go.

    Mass Effect 3 was a great game to the last 5 minutes of the game.

    EA seems to understand this now.

    And if they don’t, they will find that their customers are going to support Kickstart companies who are creating the games they want to see.

  • Someone should probably let us know if Wedbush is holding any EA stock or has recommendations published on it.

    For someone that works for a financial securities firm you think it might have been mentioned that EA’s stock is trading at a six month low today with negative EPS.

    Oh look at the recommendations page Wedbush has it as a strong buy recommend by Pachtner…


    Only 6 out of 24 analysts have it as a strong buy…

  • cryofpaine cryofpaine 2 years ago

    Michael Pachter is an out of touch stuffed-shirt who is talking out his rear end on a topic he knows little about.

    See, I can do it too. I don’t know this man, he might spend every waking moment playing video games (though from the sound of things, I doubt it). The point is, I’m making a judgement about him based on what very little information is contained in his comments, and my own biases. Just like he is.

    It’s nice to see someone being at least somewhat honest in this debate. Not once did he mention “art”. It was all about the business. Basically he said that game companies shouldn’t strive for perfection because that would take too long and cut into a company’s bottom line. This kind of thinking is why we get tons of movies like “Transformers 7: All Explosions, No Plot” and few really memorable films that stand out as great works of art.

    He says that video games shouldn’t manage to the “highest common denominator”. So what then should it manage to, the lowest? Because it’s clear that no where in his comments does he ever take into consideration the quality of art on it’s own. His only concern is with the business of video games and how a company can make money. That people like this can have influence, and in fact, can have more influence on game developers than actual fans, makes me sick.

    And in point of fact, Hollywood directors go back and change movies based on fan feedback all the time. Look up how many movies have had scenes reshot based on responses from a test audience.

    His point that EA is providing free DLC to “clarify” the awful ending, when it “didn’t have to”, is not valid. Clearly, EA had to do something. Stock prices were falling, EA won an award for worst company in America against companies that were clearly more deserving, and the controversy was way out of hand. So no, I don’t think that was a magnanimous gesture that EA did out of the kindness of their hearts. I think it was pure self-interest. The problem is, it does nothing to address the concerns of many fans, who believe the ending was fundamentally flawed. And the worst thing about it, most of us would have gladly paid to see an ending befitting this franchise. This move has absolutely nothing to do with appeasing fans, and everything to do with motivated self interest.

  • LeroyJ LeroyJ 2 years ago

    Pachter-”kids these days are just no good whiners!–we did not complain about Pac Man and it didn’t even have an ending!”

    This guy’s whole argument is based on ad hominem attacks on the “whiners” and ridiculous overexaggerations. No one is saying there should be 100% satisfaction and his slippery slope argument about what this will mean is equally poor logic. He assumes that every game without total satisfaction is going to garner this type of massively negative response.

    He also makes some rather bold assumptions regarding everything from the effects this may have had on sales (didn’t hurt and probably helped) to the amount of people that were pissed off. 1% being unsatisfied is laughable and I don’t know how this could have helped the sales considering the availability of used copies.

    Pachter really comes off as an out-of-touch, bitter old man here.

  • Adam Adam 2 years ago

    Mass Effect 3 was not the only lackluster product they delivered.
    EA also published Star Wars: The Old Republic and Dragon Age II before that.
    Both of these games have a large number of people who were dissatisfied with them.
    Like with nearly any product there are people unhappy about it but this is a lot of people or else this article and many more on the subject would not exist.
    In regards to the poll being “not particularly scientific” it was people on the internet voting on who they did not like the most and EA won.
    They didn’t win that just because they made one 5 year long chose your own adventure story that had only slightly different endings, it takes years of making horrible products to garner that much ill will.
    To gamers being “far more vocal (and bitter) than any other broad consumer group” that is because things like music, books and film do not commonly cost as much as video games.
    The comment “They sell entertainment products that are better than the average, at competitive prices” is an outright lie because
    A. There was this poll you see and it seems to point out a correlation between EA and a large number of people who hate them and
    B. If you walk into a gamestop and look for EA games on the shelf you will find that unless they are used copies they are the exact same price as every other game around it.

  • Corbin Allen Corbin Allen 2 years ago

    WedBush Securities (Formerly WedBush-Morgan) is an investment firm.

    Essentially, Pachter’s job is to analyze the profitability of gaming development projects and help to ensure the highest return-on-investment. In other words, his gravy train is represented entirely by us “whiny gamers”.

    It’s no wonder he’s downplaying things and choosing the “artistic integrity” side of the fight. If consumers take back control of the gaming market by demanding high-quality products and settling for nothing less, Pachter’s bonuses start getting smaller! No bank in its right mind wants the end-user to have power over a market, and that’s the angle from which he’s speaking.

    It’s a bit like interviewing Judas Iscariot and asking his opinion on the New Testament. Sure, he was there, but you’re not going to get an impartial analysis for a response.

  • If Patcher thinks it was only Mass Effect 3 that won his company that award, he is delusional. It is a string of issues that are the heart of the problem.

    EA Sports turning out the same game with a roster update every year, then shutting down the servers of the old version so you have to purchase the new version.

    EA’s Project Ten money grab attempt under the veiled claim that it would support the servers of games, but then they still shut them down.

    It is the releasing of Day One DLC with claims that contradicts evidence (not on the disc, made after it went gold, well we had to put parts of it on the disc).

    It is the blatant pandering of DLC even before a you finish the supposed full game.

    It is the nickel and dime approach to gaming such as creating painful grinds so they can offer to sell you shortcuts.

    It is the purchasing of every smaller competitor they can find and turning into the horrible image of themselves (Mass Effect is a great example of this, the first game was an RPG with Shooter elements, the Second was a Gears of War ripoff with RPG elements).

    Yeah, there are lots of reasons people are upset with your company.

  • That’s funny because I was just reading another analyst saying EA is headded for the dumps. Stock price is falling faster than newton’s law which means it is actually being thrown to the ground. Looks like EA might take some heavy losses this year after all the smoke settles. Note that they don’t report earnings until much later, and SWTOR flopped really hard already after recently being released. Hardly anyone resubbed in that game because it is so boring and poorly made. EA is gonna hit rock bottom.

  • I got linked here from another forum… who was linking to the SW:TOR forums… where a user named Jett-Rinn linked this article claiming Michael Pachter was part of an “educated public” (almost reads off like marketing speak, and considering EA’s underhanded tactics of stealth marketing on forums have come out in public, it wouldn’t surprise me if this user was one of them), and was essentially using his words of a vocal minority as gospel.

    Here’s the truth about Michael Pachter: The guy is an industry joke.


    (in case this video gets taken down (again), the title of it is “The Best of Gametrailers”).

    People need to stop putting a camera in this guy’s face, because stupid people on Internet forums are taking his words as gospel when almost everything he says is so far from the truth that you’d have to measure the distance in Astronomical Units.

    I’ll tell you one thing that is definite, and that’s fan outrage DOES have a detrimental effect on sales performances, no matter how much Pachter wants to convince himself (and his employers) otherwise. One just has to look at EA/Bioware’s Dragon Age II sales figures compared to Dragon Age: Origins to see for themselves.

    Source: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.274668-Dragon-Age-2-Sales