EA COO Peter Moore may have wanted to defend his company in the wake of possibly winning The Consumerist Worst Company of 2013 award, but his defense of the company's practices and his contention that conservative groups are doing most of the voting does not sit well with the site.

With EA within striking distance of winning the Consumerist's "Worst Company in America" award for a second year in a row, EA chief operating officer Peter Moore thought it might be a good idea to mention that the company is paying attention to the dubious distinction it might end up winning next week and that it realizes that it needs to make some changes to better serve its customers.

Electronic Arts continues to roll over the competition in the Consumerist's tournament to decide the "Worst Company In America 2013." The semi-final round of winning this dubious distinction for bad service pits Electronic Arts against Ticketmaster, while Comcast will attempt to defeat Bank of America. The winners of this competition will go onto the finals.

In what can only be called a savage beating, Electronic Arts beat the holy hell out of Facebook in the latest round of The Consumerist's Worst Company in America. EA is like 1980's Mike Tyson so far. In the first round it beat down and crushed Anheuser-Bucsch with 92% of the vote. Against Facebook, it was a similar beating, with 79%.

A mother in Toronto (Ontario, Canada) blames lax security at Microsoft after her 11-year-old son's Xbox Live account was hacked for $300 in fraudulent charges for in-game content. Jennifer Stubbs of Toronto said an unknown hacker charged the FIFA 13 Ultimate in-game buys to her credit card.

"I wasn't aware that these purchases were happening," she told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. "Someone had gone into our device remotely."

Last week we asked you "How will John Riccitello's departure affect the future of Electronic Arts?" Exactly 481 votes were cast, with the majority coming to the conclusion that not much will change when EA's outspoken CEO leaves the company and his role on the publisher's board of directors.

Hot on the heels of an exploit uncovered relating to EA's origin client, another product in the EA family has been found to have a massive security hole. Users playing EA's Battlefield Play4Free game on an older version of Windows can have their PCs hijacked by simply landing on a booby-trapped website, according to this Ars Technica report.

Well, EA's been having a hell of a March, hasn't it?

After one of the single most face-palmingly disastrous product launches in the history of video games, long-time Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has resigned from the company, accepting full responsibility for this year's projected less-than-favorable financial results.

Riccitiello will be hanging around for a few weeks.  After that, former CEO and executive chairman Larry Probst will take over while a replacement CEO is found (my money's on Probst ending up with the job).

Electronic Arts has earned the dubious distinction of being named a contender again this year (it won last year) for the annual Consumerist award, the 2013 Worst Company in America award. EA will have some stiff competition this year including Bank of America, AT&T, Ticketmaster, Comcast, PayPal, and Sallie Mae - amongst many others. Some notable inclusions for this year include Carnival Cruise (for its “Poop Cruise”), JC Penney, and Anheuser-Busch.

Long-time Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello resigned from the company today and will leave EA by the end of the month. Former CEO and executive chairman Larry Probst will oversee EA's operations until a suitable replacement can be found. Riccitiello will also leave his position on the EA board. He will receive 24 months salary as part of his departure deal.

Riccitiello oversaw EA's growth from 1997 to 2004, then leaving for venture capital firm Elevation Partners. He rejoined in 2007 to take on the role of CEO.

Whatever anyone thinks of SimCity, the proof is in the early numbers, and those early sales numbers from the first two weeks of the game's release show that the game is doing pretty well despite a rough online launch week. EA said that during those first two weeks of release SimCity sold more than 1.1. million copies. The company said that the majority of those copies were sold through digital channels. This does not surprise me at all considering that everyone I asked today said they had made a digital purchase.

On this week's show we talk about Congressman Frank Wolf's hearing this week to slam "violent video games," changes being made to the ESRB, the ESA's plan for a PSA campaign, the latest SimCity news, and the results of the latest GamePolitics poll. Download Episode 45 now: SuperPAC Episode 45 (1 hour, 12 minutes) 66.6 MB.

A new SimCity mod detailed in a YouTube video and later explained in-depth on a Reddit thread reveals that it is possible to play SimCity offline indefinitely with a few important caveats. Despite those caveats the mod shows that the game can easily be transitioned from an "always connected" game to an offline single player game, despite what both EA and Maxis have said. According to modder UKAzzer he was able to do this with a little bit of work and by enabling the game's secret debug mode. This allowed him to turn off the disconnection timer limit.

On this week's show, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss the first Tropes vs. Women video, "Bronies" and if rights holders should be a little kinder to fan projects, and the nightmarish launch of SimCity this week. Download Episode 44 now: SuperPAC Episode 44 (1 hour, 6 minutes) 60.4 MB.

EA Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw acknowledged in an internal memo obtained by Polygon that readjusted review scores and lower reviews scores coming in everyday is fair. Bradshaw admitted that, since SimCity is an online game, and the game is having trouble providing the service it promises, it is not surprising that it is getting bad reviews.

Well, the good news is that EA's official Twitter for its digital distribution service Origin has confirmed that you will not be banned if you ask for a refund on your purchase of SimCity in light of the fact that you probably can't play it.

The bad news is that you more than likely ain't getting that refund.

It's been a pretty rough day for both customers who bought SimCity and the developers trying everything under the sun to get it working at full capacity. While EA has been trying to solve the problem and get gamers playing the game, some fans have been very vocal about how the game's DRM has broken it beyond repair.

Last night SimCity Senior Producer Kip Katsarelis posted a statement on the EA forums addressing the ongoing issues with the game and players' complaints that servers are continually inaccessible.

As is often the case with games that rely heavily on "always online" schemes, EA's SimCity had a bit of trouble today as it officially launched servers for the latest entry in the popular city building simulation. EA's biggest problem seems to be related to its digital distribution platform Origin, which has struggled to keep up with fans' demand to buy and play the game on launch day. Users have encountered a number of problems today including trouble downloading their digitally purchased copies and problems with unlocking physical copies of the game.

GamesRadar is reporting that BioWare San Francisco has been shut down and all of its 25 - 30 employees have been laid off, a source within the company tells the publication. The studio, formerly known as EA2D, developed the Facebook game Dragon Age: Legends and Mirror's Edge 2D for browsers.

GamesRadar's source claims that Electronic Arts apparently came to the conclusion that it was "too expensive" to develop mobile games in Redwood Shores, CA.

According to two reports, one on Polygon and another on GiantBomb, Respawn co-founder Jason West has retired from the company he helped found with Vince Zampella in 2010. Both were founders of Infinity Ward, the Activision studio responsible for the Call of Duty franchise.

We mentioned this in passing when we reported on EA and other game companies signing onto an amicus brief supporting the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, but the event deserves a little more attention: On March 7 Electronic Arts and the Human Rights Campaign will host an event to address the full spectrum of LGBT issues in gaming in New York City.

GameSpot is reporting that three game companies have signed onto an amicus brief opposing the Defense of Marriage Act. The law is being challenged by groups that want the court to strike down the law that defined marriage as being between "a man and a woman."

Apparently consumers just love microtransactions so much that EA has decided to put them in every game it makes going forward. Those ideas sprang forth from the mouth of CFO Blake Jorgensen today during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference - as reported by GameSpot.

Electronic Arts has laid off staff in its Los Angeles and Montreal studios today, according to multiple reports - including this one over at Polygon. Rumors were flying earlier in the day that Visceral Montreal, the studio behind upcoming shooter Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, had been closed.

It's not an evil alliance, but some (those that don't like Uplay and Origin) might view it that way. It looks like Uplay and Origin are doing a little foreign exchange action, with Ubisoft's digital distribution platform getting select EA titles and EA's digital distribution platform getting games from Ubisoft. Ubisoft's Uplay service is also offering games from other third-party publishers including Warner Bros., Focus Home Interactive, Freebird Games, Paradox Interactive, Telltale Games and more.

Electronic Arts announced that it will host the first-ever EA Hackathon at the EA headquarters in Redwood City, California on March 16. Teams will compete against each other for a chance to win a (what we assume will be) tasty and informative lunch with EA CTO Rajat Taneja, a selection of unnamed EA products, and $1,000 in cash for each participating team member of the winning team (of course).

EA describes the challenge as follows:

AllThingsD is reporting that Electronic Arts and Zynga have quietly settled their long-running lawsuit concerning their respective Facebook games The Sims Social and The Ville.

In a recent Gamasutra interview (as reported by Destructoid), Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen said that the publisher would shed no tears over the loss of used games or the used games market, but noted that there are benefits to having such a market exist.

Mike Blank, EA's Vice President, Production, Design, and Engineering for Origin, announced on EA's Blog the official launch of the Mac OS X client for its digital distribution platform. The OS X version of Origin offers dual-platform play for select EA games (that are available on both PC and Mac) for those gamers that use both platforms.