Question EA's incompetancy never ceases to amaze me

EA is trash, and it becomes more trash with each passing release

You seem to think EA has anything to do with anything. Twenty years ago that was barely true. Thirty years ago, they were actually about games. But not in recent history. EA is entirely about using money to make money by manipulating the companies of the gaming industry and acting as a 'producer'. In other words, they serve the same purpose for the game industry that Hollywood producers do for film... they 'find' ideas, they convince people to put up the capital to develop them, and then they take the lion's share of the profit as a payment for making it all possible. Back when a studio could commit a moderate amount of resources and develop a game in several months, there wasn't really a place for such a thing... but with the rise of MMO's and franchise games that take years to develop, the idea of having 'money in' before a completed product was ready to sell.. was something studios were willing to sell their souls to get. And souls sold is exactly what happened. The money, and marketing, provided by EA gave them far more power over creative choices (and release dates) than was ever wise.

That was the point in which games started releasing before they were ready. When game design became more about drawing the demographic than having a good story or challenging game play. Sound a lot like film?

And yes, the buying up of independent studios to get IP control over key products and then running those studios into the ground... is just good old american wall street business at work.