MAITLAND, Fla. — The video game company Electronic Arts, which builds some of its major titles in Maitland, has landed on a dubious list of America’s most-hated companies.
The fallout appears to stem from the company’s recent scuffle with gamers over in-game purchases, a strategy that EA pushed hard in its popular “Star Wars Battlefront II” title.
The approach allows gamers to buy experience points and other rare items to advance quickly through games. EA temporarily suspended the practice in the “Battlefront” game. During an earnings call in late January, CEO Andrew Wilson hinted that in-game purchases would be researched some more.
In the list of 20 companies compiled by 24/7 Wall Street, a note about EA’s No. 5 ranking says that the company has helped shape the face of gaming but that it also has “earned a reputation as the industry’s evil empire,” both because of the loot fiasco and its tendency to absorb small studios.
The website says it factored in metrics that include customer service and employee satisfaction among its criteria for the list.
Electronic Arts’ popularity has varied wildly. Just as the company landed on the 24/7 Wall Street list, Fortune magazine named it as one of the 50 companies poised for growth and placed it at No. 23 in its list of the world’s most-admired companies.
The blog post also included Equifax, which suffered a security breach last year; United Airlines, which faced a public relations nightmare after an incident captured on camera showed a passenger being roughed up while getting booted off a plane; and the NFL, which faced backlash in 2017 from several player protests.
Electronic Arts employs about 700 people in its Maitland office, where a large part of its popular Madden football and NBA Live basketball video games are built.
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Orlando startup, Fairwinds partner
An Orlando tech company has partnered with Fairwinds Credit Union on an artificial intelligence product that helps advise customers on their banking.
Fairwinds Virtual Adviser uses conversational AI to answer customers’ questions and offer them support. Basically, it automatically answers questions using keyword prompts and other algorithms.
The company adopted the “chatbot” platform built by Abe.ai, an Orlando tech company that last year took part in Techstars Cape Town, one of the more prestigious accelerator programs in the world with backing from London-based bank Barclays.
“We are proud to partner with Abe AI as we introduce the Fairwinds Virtual Adviser to our members,” Fairwinds President and CEO Larry Tobin said in a news release. “We are excited to stand at the forefront of the conversational AI movement to deliver a simplified and personalized experience.”
The Virtual Adviser will provide members with guidance on locations, services including banking and loan payments, application support and other educational questions that explain banking-related topics.
“We are thrilled to partner with an institution such as Fairwinds, which shares our vision of a more streamlined path of communication between financial institutions and their members,” Abe CEO Rob Guilfoyle said in a statement.
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