Costa Rica

This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor

This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor

This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor

This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor

This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor

This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor


This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor

This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor

This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor


This photo of La Fortuna Waterfall is courtesy of TripAdvisor

An abandoned dog on the railroad tracks gets rescued - you must see this...

Electronic Arts: Giving the Gaming Industry a Bad Name

oh the dreaded captchas….weren’t they a nightmare!? I lost the vast majority of my original neighbours in pet society during the captcha nightmare. I started playing in 2008 with a bunch of friends I’d played another game with called Lil Green Patch after it was shut down when Playdom took over (sound familiar?). I had to find new neighbours, which wasn’t a problem in itself, but losing my original neighbours was crushing. Their pets were still there, but they were not visited by their owners anymore and going to see them was depressing-they’d be covered in flies and walking the dying from starvation walk.
I wrote a similar topic post on my blog about how EA bled pet society dry but there were many things you mentioned here that I had forgotten about, and now when I think of all these points added together, I feel so violated for all us at the hands of EA. I also feel really bad for the Playfish team and the thousands of employees EA have sacked throughout their many acquisitions, wheelings and dealings. How many careers have been destroyed by them? How many people have fallen ill with various stress and anxiety-related disorders as a direct result of their actions? What are they doing to offset the negative effects they have on multiple country’s economies with their mass lay-offs and relocations? I am aware these last two factors are not unique to EA and are in fact, often common behavioural traits of trans-national corporations. However, most TNC’s are equally aware that their reputation is paramount to their ongoing success, and that the embracing of corporate social responsibility is likewise a two-way, win-win situation for the company and the community upon which it impacts. It was these two key factors that sprung to mind when reading the response by Peter Moore to EA being awarded ‘The Worst Company in America’ for a second year running.
Many people found Peter’s response arrogant, biased, and non-repentant, but a few reporters wrote that Peter had a point when stating that “EA had not leaked oil or caused any serious environmental or health issues like some of the other contenders for the ‘award’ had”. It was on these grounds he based his argument: ‘that EA did not deserve the award because other companies are a lot worse’. The remainder of his response sounded like an aggressive, spoilt brat who refused to take responsibility for EA’s actions, and focused solely on sales numbers as the only marker for success. Very telling. While the so-called bad companies take measures to give back to the community via sponsorship, donations, project launches and other identified needs, EA does nothing at all but take people’s money. While other companies perform regular customer evaluation surveys and seek feedback from customers to tailor their products/services to better suit customer needs, EA respond to help requests from customers by sending automated email replies for weeks, even months on end. Their customer service centre is notorious for it’s ineffectiveness and ineptitude. I needn’t even mention the myriad of glitches, bugs and loading issues customers were forced to put up with for months, even years, while their requests for help went ignored and the problems remained unfixed. As long as the money was still coming in, EA just simply didn’t care.