You know, companies that do a number of things wrong and they are the most evil company ever. Stuff like:

Activision - franchise milking
EA - Origin Spyware
Ubisoft - broken and insulting DRM
Capcom - Megaman Trolling

You know, companies that are not really evil, but do some dumb things that are kinda serious, but kinda trivial at the same time. Are there others? are all companies guilty of something?

The four you listed are pretty universally disliked for the reasons you cited, but once you get beyond those it gets pretty subjective. Some people think Nintendo is the antichrist these days for their franchise milking and the Wii (or specifically how it's geared toward "casual" games). Other people are pretty cool about it. And I think RockStar is also a pretty hot or cold developer, though the reasons for that are not quite as clear to me.

Don't forget that EA has basically turned call of duty in to Madden, another pile of shit that's squeezed out every year where your hard pressed to find new content amongst bits of corn.

Nintendo for basically re-releasing the same games over and over and barely even attempting to cover it up because they know they'll always get away with it. Nintendo for bricking my Wii even though I never modded it and trying to charge me 75 dollars for them to repair it.

Capcom for Megaman trolling. Capcom for pulling support for phoenix wright in the west.

Bethesda for always releasing unplayable games and patching afterward.

EA - Origin Killer, Destroyer of Worlds.

NEVER FORGET. NEVER FORGET!!!

Don't forget Squeenix, such a pathetic and greedy excuse for a game development company. They are almost as bad as EA in my book.

They are all evil.

Companies who do it solely because they love game are few and far between these days. Even the old guard like id Software has to "change course" when market reality knocks on their door. A minimum of $10 million to create a game is a heck a lot of money, money that they have to recoup.

xDarc:
Don't forget that EA has basically turned call of duty in to Madden, another pile of shit that's squeezed out every year where your hard pressed to find new content amongst bits of corn.

That one is Activision, actually.

OP: All the ones you listed have definitely done villainous things recently, but a company that can really piss me off, even though it gets off scot-free, is Rockstar, and their treatment of PC gamers. Rockstar Social Club is annoying as hell, GTA IV is a total mess, and come on guys, we all know we wanted Red Dead Redemption, and not L.A. Noire!
Okay, okay, they're probably not doing this on purpose, they aren't trying to enrage PC gamers, but ever since they released that piece of shit lots of people couldn't even get running they call GTA IV on the PC, their treatment of the market has been downright terrible. Maybe they just don't care anymore, but then why did they have to create that goddamn Social Club? And Why doesn't Rockstar get more flak for this?
I know, they aren't really an evil corporation like the others that have been mentioned here, but they still REALLY piss me off sometimes.

None of them are evil. It's just the silly hyperbolic horesehit that gamers like to toss around at the drop of a hat. You'd think EA kicked their dog or something the way they complain.

Zynga are a pretty nasty company, I wouldn't want anything to do with them.

The others? Eh, milking games is their right and if people are dumb enough to support it then it sucks, but so be it.
Generally though they're not that bad, just companies doing their best to make money and that means being as bastardly as they can get away with, without pissing too many people off. Capitalism is fun.

Paya Chin:
EA - Origin Killer, Destroyer of Worlds.

NEVER FORGET. NEVER FORGET!!!

Don't forget Westwood and Bullfrog as well.

Also the things listed in the OP aren't "evil" their cheap and lazy but not evil. You wantexamples of evil, Activision hiring thugs to intimidate Infinity Ward when they fired them to avoid having to pay them, that's evil. That EA spouse thing from a few years back, that's evil.

There's a really interesting article I remember reading by the developer of Galactic Civilisations who explained that forn his first game he was literally no money despite it making a few million and that it was standard practise for publishers to somply not pay developers since they wouldn't be in a position to try and force them to pay developers generally just had to suck it up, to any Troika fans reading, this is why we never got Arcanum 2.

THQ deserves more hate. Online passes, chopped up DLC, Volition dev is vehemently against used games and thinks online passes aren't going far enough.

Sometimes I hate Valve for not being able to count to three. But I know they aren't evil, and I like Steam, and their other games, so I guess it's cool. It's just frustrating sometimes. Watch: 1,2,3, there I just did it right now, does that look so hard????

BiscuitWheels:
None of them are evil. It's just the silly hyperbolic horesehit that gamers like to toss around at the drop of a hat. You'd think EA kicked their dog or something the way they complain.

Since evil is relative and all that...What should a company do, in your mind, to allow one to label them as evil?
Rape your little sister while burning down an orphanage? Or would that just by hyperbolic horse dung?
Would EA's insane abuse of it's employees as depicted by the EA Spouse do?
Would Nintendo's illegal monopoly-tendencies on the European market work? Please, enlighten me!

Fat_Hippo:

xDarc:
Don't forget that EA has basically turned call of duty in to Madden, another pile of shit that's squeezed out every year where your hard pressed to find new content amongst bits of corn.

That one is Activision, actually.

OP: All the ones you listed have definitely done villainous things recently, but a company that can really piss me off, even though it gets off scot-free, is Rockstar, and their treatment of PC gamers. Rockstar Social Club is annoying as hell, GTA IV is a total mess, and come on guys, we all know we wanted Red Dead Redemption, and not L.A. Noire!
Okay, okay, they're probably not doing this on purpose, they aren't trying to enrage PC gamers, but ever since they released that piece of shit lots of people couldn't even get running they call GTA IV on the PC, their treatment of the market has been downright terrible. Maybe they just don't care anymore, but then why did they have to create that goddamn Social Club? And Why doesn't Rockstar get more flak for this?
I know, they aren't really an evil corporation like the others that have been mentioned here, but they still REALLY piss me off sometimes.

Actually before GTAIV, the PC versions of their games were actually pretty good.

grimgor42:
Sometimes I hate Valve for not being able to count to three. But I know they aren't evil, and I like Steam, and their other games, so I guess it's cool. It's just frustrating sometimes. Watch: 1,2,3, there I just did it right now, does that look so hard????

I see what you did there. (Profile picture)

In all reality, I'd say most publishers. They are corrupt, only in it for the money.

Origin is nothing compared to EA Sports' release schedule, SecuROM, screwing over good developers, and insulting advertisements. It's just the latest in a long line of grievances against EA.

EA went from one of the most hated companies in the industry in the 90's and early 00's to being one of the most beloved simple because of Bioware and DICE and not being Activision, then back to one of the most hated. God help the gaming community if they ever become top dog.

EA have churned out half finished games year after year with no replay value.

Don't even get me started on the who online pass system...

If franchise milking counts, more or less everyone.

On a similar note, I'd say Games Workshop, though they aren't a computer gaming company. All those models you bought at great expense may or may not be useful once they revise the game in a few years, to say nothing of individual codices.

I don't feel likeCapcom and activision belong on that list if that's the best thing you can come up with. A companies choice of which IP's to push isn't a sign of the beast.

Additionally, EA has more than origin to account for. Like their abysmal marketing campaigns, and the mountain of online pass day one DLC exclusive pre-order content bullcrap they are responsible for that makes buying a new game a nightmare.

As for Ubisoft, yeah that sounds right.

Also, if were condemning these companies to developer hell, I demand we stick bioware into purgatory for being just general assholes. Someone needs to slap them around before they adopt all of EA's bad habits instead of just most of them.

Let's not forget Square-Enix, for releasing the same shit over and over and over and over.

Some Final Fantasy games have been released 4-5 times. :/

All of them, pretty much. Okay, that's a little too simple of an answer. Pretty much all of them are disingenuous and don't care one bit about gaming and a good number of them are unfriendly to the consumer. It's all a matter of degrees.

Blizzard, by the way, gets away with more shit than probably any of the companies most people mention. Why? Everything about their latest games' designs screams "LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR MONEY OMNOMNOMNOMNOM", they restrict their games with completely unwarranted shit like region locks and online-only DRM, they create a platform for mod creation that has huge potential and then squash that potential with a million different limitations. They go against their own games with everything that surrounds those games.

Capcom are, arguably in my opninion, the most evil company- Total disrespect for their IP's, releasing half done games and finishing off the whole thing with DLC, or just releasing the bare minimum for a hyped up game. Yep, i don't think anyone defines the whole 'stereotypical money-hungry games company' better then good ol' Capcom..

valve.
yes, i will catch copious ammounts of flame for this. no, i'm not trolling. i just know that they have a million mindles fansheep who will blindly be the white knight for them no matter what they do.

for creating steam, the first of a new generation of DRMs; and with it turning games from a product into a service, the trend that is responsible for many negative things we see with gaming nowadays. yearly remakes, pay-for-mini-content DLC, power to ban clients at a whim..

Well evil is a relative term and when it comes to sins of game companies then yes they can be considered evil. Yes, a lot of us understand in the big picture this is hyperbole but as far as game companies go those things does make them equivalent to devil.

To be honest there is better stuff you can come up with for Activision. Anything that comes out of Kotick's mouth and thankfully he has been detained in the basement or has stopped talking to gaming new area with shit, the whole MW 2 thing on the PC version and that whole weird debacle with Infinity Ward.

Also they have turned CoD into the Fifa/Madden of FPS games among others.

The:

Fat_Hippo:

xDarc:
Don't forget that EA has basically turned call of duty in to Madden, another pile of shit that's squeezed out every year where your hard pressed to find new content amongst bits of corn.

That one is Activision, actually.

OP: All the ones you listed have definitely done villainous things recently, but a company that can really piss me off, even though it gets off scot-free, is Rockstar, and their treatment of PC gamers. Rockstar Social Club is annoying as hell, GTA IV is a total mess, and come on guys, we all know we wanted Red Dead Redemption, and not L.A. Noire!
Okay, okay, they're probably not doing this on purpose, they aren't trying to enrage PC gamers, but ever since they released that piece of shit lots of people couldn't even get running they call GTA IV on the PC, their treatment of the market has been downright terrible. Maybe they just don't care anymore, but then why did they have to create that goddamn Social Club? And Why doesn't Rockstar get more flak for this?
I know, they aren't really an evil corporation like the others that have been mentioned here, but they still REALLY piss me off sometimes.

Actually before GTAIV, the PC versions of their games were actually pretty good.

Ya, I could play GTA San Andreas on a pretty dated laptop without problems.

GTA IV? My friend with a super-powerful PC that a year ago was stronger than my curent machine had low FPS. And I can run Crysis 2 at very high details, or Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, or Arkham City. We're talking about a mediocre-looking game that is pretty much as open as the ones I mentioned... maybe except Crysis 2.

Also - I hate EA for what they're doing with Bioware, Warhammer, Origin and of course greed, as usual, and poor decisions.

Hammeroj:
All of them, pretty much. Okay, that's a little too simple of an answer. Pretty much all of them are disingenuous and don't care one bit about gaming and a good number of them are unfriendly to the consumer. It's all a matter of degrees.

Blizzard, by the way, gets away with more shit than probably any of the companies most people mention. Why? Everything about their latest games' designs screams "LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR MONEY OMNOMNOMNOMNOM", they restrict their games with completely unwarranted shit like region locks and online-only DRM, they create a platform for mod creation that has huge potential and then squash that potential with a million different limitations. They go against their own games with everything that surrounds those games.

I think the hatred for Blizzard is lessened a bit due to the fact that all of their games were critically acclaimed masterpieces. Diablo changed the way RPGs worked, Starcraft RTS games, Warcraft indirectly created entire new genre (MOBA games). WoW basically kickstarted MMOs from slumber into the mainstream, and Starcraft 2 continued the predecessor's work in competitive scene. Diablo 2 is probably THE best game I've ever played, and Diablo 3 is looking great. And I say all this having never played more than an hour of Starcraft (I wasn't interested in sci-fi when my cousin played it, I liked Diablo and Diablo 2 more) and disliking WoW for what it did to the general difficulty and achievement-whoring among MMO players.

But you can't hate a company that made games that basically were a huge part of your childhood. Same reason people don't hate Square-Enix, because of the previous games. I don't hate SE because their latest MMO was a shitty pile of garbage that wasted more of my time being downloaded than played.

Not much discussion value here, to be honest. Was the OP expecting something along the lines of "I personally consider Company X as being a wretched hive of scum and villainy because of Y factor" when it's pretty obvious that publishers are out for profits and don't honestly care about their customers?

ActiBlizz milks franchises and maintains its withering corpse with funds derived from World of Warcraft. EA doesn't seem to care much about its customer base and cares even less about releasing some of their frankly exciting products on a superior platform (i.e. Steam). Seeing as they lost a cut to Valve, they packed their bags and created Origin. Ubisoft doesn't even trust its customer base and saddles it with restrictive, ineffectual DRM that gets cracked out of the games they release within a week or so. Capcom's forgotten all about its older franchises in favor of peddling Resident Evil and/or Dead Rising to no end. Sega keeps beating its dead horse year after year after year, and Nintendo seems contented with the idea of re-releasing previous products with a cheapo HD coat of paint and stands in complete denial of the more-than-simply-casual crowd. Zynga doesn't have an original bone in its body. Rockstar treats the PC gaming scene like it's the Third World...

Finally, Microsoft. Price-gouging, money-grubbing, spamming, and condescending Microsoft. I'd add Sony for the exact same reasons, seeing as their initial price points for the Move were completely unjustified.

Are any of these companies evil, though? Nah, they're just being stupid, as a side effect of being regulated by pie charts and blind observations of so-called industry analysts and focus groups. Nobody's actually cackling maniacally at the prospect of forcing John Q Public to bend over and take it; it's just a side effect which tends to happen when your customers are no longer people, but distant statistics.

About every developer is hated by some, except most indie studios and Valve (although maybe Valve because of milking Left 4 Dead (L4D2 was released within a year of the original L4D, o my knowledge without any dramatical changes)).

So much butthurt in this thread. I dunno, every gaming company you can name has released something nice that I have enjoyed thoroughly recently. Hell, I'm playing through Mass Effect 2 in time for Mass Effect 3, both EA titles.

So, Activision, with CoD that at least changes a little bit each incarnation, milks more than Nintendo who doesn't even bother with changing anything?
EA is shit for their DLC.
Ubisoft, meh.
Capcom, well, I think they're all assholes for NOT RELEASING A NEW MONSTER HUNTER GAME STATESIDE! I can't give a shit about Megaman.

The:

Fat_Hippo:

xDarc:
Don't forget that EA has basically turned call of duty in to Madden, another pile of shit that's squeezed out every year where your hard pressed to find new content amongst bits of corn.

That one is Activision, actually.

OP: All the ones you listed have definitely done villainous things recently, but a company that can really piss me off, even though it gets off scot-free, is Rockstar, and their treatment of PC gamers. Rockstar Social Club is annoying as hell, GTA IV is a total mess, and come on guys, we all know we wanted Red Dead Redemption, and not L.A. Noire!
Okay, okay, they're probably not doing this on purpose, they aren't trying to enrage PC gamers, but ever since they released that piece of shit lots of people couldn't even get running they call GTA IV on the PC, their treatment of the market has been downright terrible. Maybe they just don't care anymore, but then why did they have to create that goddamn Social Club? And Why doesn't Rockstar get more flak for this?
I know, they aren't really an evil corporation like the others that have been mentioned here, but they still REALLY piss me off sometimes.

Actually before GTAIV, the PC versions of their games were actually pretty good.

Yeah, I know. I've actually played both the PS2 and the PC versions of GTA: San Andreas, and thought the PC version was way superior. But in the last couple of years they've really been disappointing. I hope they do improve, and don't really consider them 'evil', just a bit douchey sometimes.