I strongly dislike EA, but I look at each game separately. With some of their sims 2 "stuff" packs, they have seriously added like 20 new items or outfits and charged quite a few bucks for it. Its disgustingly dissapointing, but I retain hopes for Spore.

Although charging money for the demo seems like another sad attempt at milking their customers for cash, I really can't blame them as they DO have a free demo as well. If they had not allowed people to pay for access to the full demo there would only have been the limited version, as releasing the full editor might hurt their sales (some people might just settle for the editor). In any case, can we really blame the publisher for giving us the OPTION of paying for premature access to their product?
It is not as if the mere presence of this option should hinder anyone...

That said they make many bad decisions, and whenever I see their name on something I start fearing they'll screw it up like they have done to many other games in the past.

Way to kill an otherwise great post. (

I beta test for several companies one of which is EA.

EA is neither good or bad in general. Command and Conquer is one of their currently hallmark stategy sets. Lord of the Rings is actually pretty darn good. Crysis is currently the tops when it comes to graphics in a game.

EA is a huge company. There are parts of it that I can not stand, yet there are others which rock. To each his own.

If you do not like something, write the development department with a real letter. You will be suprised that they actually do read them even if they do not repond to each and every one of them. If you have an excellent idea, they will use it and if its an incredible idea, they will let you beta test and you get a free copy of the game with a shot at some money and you name in the credits.