WOW, goddamn, talk about a fall from grace. You start out as this kind of independant company trying to fight Atari's stranglehold you come out with the most innovative games of your time like M.U.L.E. and Archon. Now you're the industry juggernaut that's crushing competition, has a monopoly on the NFL game market and you're now trying to rewrite facts in your favor.

This sort of this was inevitable. Fox News was just caught with their hands in the Wikipedia cookie jar and we'll be seeing more companies getting busted in the near future as well. Hell, MS's fully-disclosed contract requesting an independent source examine a wikipedia entry and make changes without corporate editorial control doesn't seem quite as bad in light of these underhanded attempts at information control.

@Marlowe:

Archon was great. They didn't make it. They only published it. The developers were Freefall Associates. Nontheless, their behavior and vision has changed dramatically since the Trip Hawkins days, about that, you're totally correct.

Here's hoping that not only is the Wikipedia article fully restored, but that this shameful event is added to the criticisms section they wanted gone.

Reading the EA article on Wikipedia is pretty much like reading the glorious review of all that is good and holy in this world, far from the truth of the matter. Hopefully someone solves those little "revisions" before it's too late.

EZK, dunno. Maybe a clash of egos?

@Bildo: Simple solution, eliminate the people, and all of the problems in the world will go away :D

Seriously though, this isn't the first time some company (or organization in general) has attempted to revise Wikipedia. Heck, anyone with a burr up their a** can sit there and try to revise things. I loved the fight over the inclusion of the "Play games, not Warcraft" episode of South Park that happened a couple months back... someone decided he or she didn't like World of Warcraft, and therefore wanted that *one* episode's content to be edited to remove all WoW references, claiming the game wasn't important enough to get such a spotlight.

Of course, issues like this occur on almost every corporate related page, it typically only stays on the ones no on is watching. Most of the time it gets fixed, and frequently the person gets blocked for a few days.

I really like it when someone tries to claim they are not a corporate shill. Then it gets entertaining.

@The_None

Ah, somewhat?

History is not necessarily factual with Wikipedia, it's just what every interested party agrees on. Great in concept, flawed in an encyclopedia.

I dont want to sound like im (dear lord) defending EA (though i do like some of there games) but why pick on EA? Other companies do it - and its not nesseceraly on orders. It could easily be a bored staffer doing it him/herself.


Oh wait. Its that EVIL EA, isnt it? So it must be on order *sigh*

Wikipedia is mostly accurate for general knowlege, just check their bibliography if you run accross a fact that seems odd, if you can't verify the fact assume it's false. Wikipedia isn't to blame for this, it's a great tool, you just need to not be retarded when using wikipedia.

I have to say.... the link in the update is pretty neat. I like some of those revisions (mostly because I got a giggle out of the NRA changing Hunting to wildlife conservation and management)...

...Trip Hawkins is a great man. He FOUNDED EA, didn't he? Wasn't it him that made the company the juggernaut it is today (well, in the the fact that it's big)? Why would you try to erase someone like that out of your history? o_O;;

Zigs does have a point you know.

EA is not the only game company that has edited a wikipedia page in there own favor. Nintendo has pulled something much worse.They edited the pages refering to the gamecube and the ds lite hardware flaws.

Nintendo has edited out "Features a much strudier hinge than the previous model,witch was somewhat fragile"on the DS lite page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=69067595

They also edited out a paragraph that talked about the disk read errors the early model gamecubes had.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=124383171

"http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=27751"

My god...what a load that was.

"An EA spokesperson told GamesIndustry.biz that "EA sometimes updates websites with info about the company, games and employees. For example, EA has sent a correction to Yahoo Finance when they had misspelled the name of an EA executive.""

Comparing a _typo_ of an exec's name to expunging most traces of Trip Hawkins and trying to erase records of the EA Spouse incident? That's like not only digger yourself deeper, that's digging faster than before.

"Many companies routinely post updates on websites like Wikipedia to ensure accuracy of their own corporate information."

Except that this wasn't "ensuring accuracy". This was omitting or altering facts to such a degree as to intentionally obfuscate the truth in an attempt to cover up politically damaging aspects of the company's history.

I'm sure the folks who work in the trenches over at EA are great people, but it's like the higher up you climb their ladder, the more of an asshat you become.

Pope Fonzie.... that has a nice ring to it

HEYYYYY!!!!


can one genuflect with one's thumbs extended?

I’ve got an Amazon gift certificate burning holes in my pocket,
and I want to get the most bang for my buck.

Enter the Secret Amazon Web Pages:

http://tinyurl.com/38sojf

This is where you’re going to find the "latest sales, rebates, and limited-time offers" from
Amazon, and you can score some pretty deep discounts if you’re a savvy shopper.

Next, there’s the special Sale link. This is open every Friday, and ONLY on Fridays.

You can find the same good discounts here as you would in hidden Deals, although some
Fridays you can really get lucky and make off like an Amazon bandit - I’ve seen discounts
there as low as 75% off sticker price.

Claire Newton ,ive been trying to contact her for many years now.Hopefully she will find this post on Google.Dorothy's mother has my family's contact info.She might have come across the story that I contributed to on Gamespot.