EA swiftly backtracks after criticising all single-player games

EA has had to backtrack on a joke it made on social media, criticising all single-player games.

In the early hours of this morning, EA took to Twitter to rework a popular meme, writing, “They’re a 10 but they only like playing single-player games.”

As you might expect, the backlash was swift. BioWare writer Patrick Weekes said “thinking about working until midnight for the better part of a year to help ship Mass Effect 2” while Zach Mumbach, formerly a producer at Visceral Games (the studio closed by EA in 2017), wasn’t holding anything back.

“This is the company that shut down my studio and laid off ~100 great developers because we were making a single player game,” he wrote.

“Also, if you break game rating scores down to a 10 point scale most EA games are a solid 6 or 7. Not because the developers are bad but because EA the corporation forces them to rush games out. EA corporate leadership wouldn’t know what a ’10’ looks like in terms of video games.”

This is the company that shut down my studio and laid off ~100 great developers because we were making a single player game ???????????????? https://t.co/2SXhQtRGE8

— Zach Mumbach (@zachulon) June 30, 2022

Blair Brown, senior producer at Respawn who are currently working on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor quoted the original Tweet and added: “My company: unable to muster up the courage to say the overturning of Roe v. Wade is pretty horrific. Also my company: with multiple teams making Single Player games”.

That tweet is in reference to an executive at EA previously saying that the company will not make a public statement defending abortion or transgender rights, claiming that “being an inclusive company means being inclusive of all points of view.”

Roast well deserved. We’ll take this L cause playing single player games actually makes them an 11. https://t.co/PNg4FKOgfB

— Electronic Arts (@EA) July 1, 2022

Following the outrage, EA then tweeted: “Roast well deserved. We’ll take this L cause playing single player games actually makes them an 11.”

In other news, Konami has managed to make an exclusivity deal with Italian football club Inter Milan for eFootball meaning that key competitor FIFA (which will be changing its branding to EA Sports FC following the release of this year’s title) will need to work around the name Inter Milan.