EA Labels president Frank Gibeau has said that EA is not tone deaf to the vast amount of criticism it receives and has responded to that criticism even when he thinks it’s not fully justified. EA's most damning criticism this year was winning the dubious distinction of being named the 2013 Worst Company in America by the Consumerist survey in April. Those results were based on voting by consumers.

The upcoming free-to-play game Command & Conquer will make a key change to its gameplay that might just make it accessible to areas outside the United States and Europe: it will change the "bad guys" in the game from being primarily Middle Eastern' militants to a more varied group made up of all kinds of ethnic groups - including Caucasians.

The 2012 and 2013 Worst Company in America just wrapped up its E3 press conference and I must say, it was phenomenally well-paced.

Until it started talking about EA Sports games and the show's momentum crashed headlong into a brick wall and the cringe-inducing, goofy stuff started rearing its unwelcome head.  But we'll get to that.  Here's the too long, didn't read version:

An extensive investigation by Eurogamer has revealed that EA's Battlefield 1943 has been offline for nearly a month and EA did very little to rectify the situation. The story began when a tipster told Eurogamer that BF1943 was not playable on PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. In order to find out, Eurogamer writer Robert Purchese bought the game and tried to connect.

In the latest round of the federal antitrust case led by former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon against the NCAA, Electronic Arts and College Licensing Co, the National Collegiate Athletic Association argued in court that it is improper to certify former college athletes as a class because they did not provide evidence to support their claims "that NCAA amateurism rules illegally 'restrain' current SAs [student athletes] from selling broadcast or video game 'group licenses.'" O'Bannon's lawsuit alleges that all the parties involved colluded to avoid pa

A federal judge has ruled that consumers who bought football related video games from EA between 2005 and 2012 can get three times as much from an earlier settlement. The new judgment is related to a class action lawsuit filed by lead plaintiffs Geoffrey Pecover and Jeffrey Lawrence in 2008. The lawsuit claimed that EA had killed off all competition in the football video game market by licensing every conceivable football franchise including National Football League, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the Arena Football League and Collegiate Licensing Co.

E3!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm excited?  Are you excited?  Oh man, it's like Christmas in June!

I don't know about you but I'm taking a vacation day on Monday, June 10 so I can stay home and watch all the conferences.  Yes, I'm that big a video game dork.

Here's the show schedule for June 10th (all times PST):

Electronic Arts has cut the price of online passes for dozens of its games - and in some cases - has made them free of charge, according to Eurogamer. Earlier in the month EA announced that it was discontinuing the use of its online pass system.

While some may be worried that the PS3 and Xbox 360 would be abandoned as soon as the PS4 and Xbox One is released to retail at the end of this year, EA says that it plans to continue to support both platforms with new games for at least another four years. Chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen revealed the company's commitment to the current generation during his recent keynote address at the Stifel 2013 Technology Conference in New York. Games already widely known to be in development for the current generation systems include Battlefield 4, FIFA 14 and the next Need For Speed.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court that dismissed the lawsuit of former Rutgers quarterback Ryan Hart's against EA Sports related to the NCAA franchise. Hart sued EA using his image in NCAA Football without his permission and without properly compensating him, he claims. Hart, who played for Rutgers from 2002-05 filed his suit in 2009 against EA.

Last week EA's Jeff Brown said that the company had "no games in development for the Wii U currently," but a statement from EA's CFO Blake Jorgensen noting that EA "is developing games for the Wii U," but not as many as the company is developing for Sony and Microsoft's consoles seems to contradict Brown's comments.

USA Today reports that Former Connecticut guard Tate George has admitted in a deposition taken last year that avatars in several versions of a video game that are supposed to represent him do not resemble him at all and were used multiple times to represent other players in the game. George is one of several former NCAA players suing the NCAA and EA Sports for illegally using their likenesses. The group of players are trying to get certified as a class.

In Episode 52, hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about female presenters at Microsoft's Xbox reveal event this week, EA's continued abuse of the Wii U community, The new S.H.I.E.L.D TV series, Wreck-It Ralph, sushi, and other topics and tangents - mostly instigated by Andrew! Download Episode 52 now: SuperPAC Episode 52 (1 hour, 12 minutes) 66.7 MB.

In an update to a story on Friday over at Eurogamer about Madden NFL 25 not coming to the Wii U and a decision about the fate of FIFA 14 on the platform, an unnamed rep from the company confirmed that the latest football title from EA Sports would be a no-show. This is not news to anyone who paid attention last week when EA said it had no games in development for the Wii U currently. Obviously that also includes every imaginable EA Sports title.

Last week EA confirmed that it didn't have any Wii U titles in development. As if that wasn't enough of a slight against owners of Nintendo's console a developer's comments over the weekend dumped a whole can of gasoline on an already raging fire.

Say the name of an Electronic Arts title you'd like to see come to the Wii U. Okay, now let me break the bad news to you as gently as I can: There are no games from Electronic Arts coming to the Wii U in the foreseeable future. Not one title. Not even a Sims game.

"We have no games in development for the Wii U currently," company spokesperson Jeff Brown told Kotaku yesterday.

Electronic Arts has decided to do away with its controversial online pass system for used games, the company confirmed with GamesBeat last night.

"Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass," EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg confirmed to GamesBeat in an e-mail. "None of our new EA titles will include that feature."

A former EA Sports producer says that the NCAA games developed by EA Sports over the years were designed to replicate actual players without using their names. This is according to a deposition given by former EA Sports producer Jeremy Strauser, who testified in a deposition for the Ed O'Bannon lawsuit against the NCAA, Collegiate Licensing Company, and EA Sports. The deposition, along with other documents from the case are part of EA's filings with the court last week. Jeremy Strauser worked at EA from 1995 until 2011.

During its conference call last night to discuss its 2013 fiscal year earnings, Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen revealed that the company cut ten percent of its workforce in the last quarter, or about 900 employees.

"Our cost reduction plans will reduce our overall headcount by approximately 10 percent," he said during the call.

If a majority of EA's upcoming games use DICE's Frostbite Engine 3 and the Frostbite Engine 3 doesn't support the Wii U then it doesn't take a genius to come to the conclusion that a whole lot of upcoming EA games will not be coming to the Wii U.

This story begins with a recent tweet from DICE technical director Johan Anderson, who responds to a question about the company's Frostbite 3 engine running on the Wii U.

Electronic Arts had decided that it will no longer "officially" license specific models of guns from gun manufacturers, according to this Reuters report. EA will continue to use various gun designs from manufacturers, but it won't pay any money for them. The company claims that it has a constitutional right to free speech in using the various gun-related trademarks.

Electronic Arts announced that it has secured a multi-year, multi-title licensing agreement with Disney to create multiple Star Wars games. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, nor were any of the games that EA plans on making. The announcement was made by President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau on EA's official blog.

Is EA and its Maxis studio learning a lesson from SimCity? We think so. Today Electronic Arts announced The Sims 4 will be coming to the PC and Mac sometime in 2014. The company also confirmed to IGN that the game will not require an internet connection in order to play, or more precisely, that it will have a single-player offline play.

Here's some more bad news for Wii U owners that might also be Madden NFL game fans: you won't be getting the popular football franchise on your platform of choice this year, according to this Ars Technica story. More importantly, what does EA's decision not to support the Wii U with one of its biggest sports franchises say about the current perception of Nintendo's struggling console system?

A federal judge has ruled that a case brought against EA by the original developer of John Madden Football may proceed to trial. The developer, Robin Antonick, claims that he was the original designer and developer of the Madden NFL series (he worked on the early computer-based versions of the game) and is owed "millions in unpaid royalties, punitive damages and disgorgement of all profits arising from the $5 billion Madden NFL franchise."

In Episode 49 of the show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss the ongoing turmoil inside EA, Nintendo's decision to not host an E3 press conference, results of the latest poll and catch up on some mail that went into the silly spam filter. Download Episode 49 now: SuperPAC Episode 49 (1 hour, 3 minutes) 58.5 MB.

Yesterday TechCrunch obtained a leaked memo attributed to EA executive chairman Larry Probst, which details EA's reorganization plans.

The memo notes that core marketing functions will be consolidated into a group called the Global Acquisition Marketing and Marketing Analytics to be overseen by COO Peter Moore and led by Todd Sitrin.

EA's Origin digital distribution platform will now be under the watchful eye of Frank Gibeau's Labels organization, while Andrew Wilson will take on its leadership.

Electronic Arts released a short statement today confirming that layoffs are happening across the company on a worldwide basis, but did not give any specific details on any of its decisions in the last month:

EA's publishing label EA Partners is shutting down, according to a report on Game Informer. The label was used to sign and publish third party franchises such as 38 Studios' Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Valve's The Orange Box, Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead franchise along with the Crysis series, the Rock Band series, Double Fine's Brutal Legend, APB, People Can Fly's Bulletstorm, Starbreeze's Syndicate, Suda51's Shadows of the Damned, and Hellgate: London.

A new massive update for SimCity released on Monday has apparently added a number of new bugs, much to the chagrin of players who have taken to EA's forums and Reddit to complain about them. The new bugs apparently plaguing the game after the v2.0 update include city sewage overloads, new traffic errors, a number of building construction issues, loading errors, and a few audio problems.

The update was meant to address some issues with traffic congestion, pathfinding problems and a list of other minor problems.