Don't press 'send.' Those three words were made famous by football coach Herm Edwards. Edwards was speaking to a group of rookies at an NFLPA-sponsored event where he was giving a presentation on the business of football. "When you press it [send] you can't take it back man - it's out there," said Edwards. This is a presentation the people over at EA should've listened to before sending out a tweet on 1 July about single-player games.
For context, EA's response here follows up on the recent obnoxious Twitter trend to write "They're a 10 but (insert negative characteristic/action here). They tweeted "They're a 10 but they only like playing single-player games". If this were anyone else and not EA, the tweet would still be met with some anger, but this is EA who posted the tweet - the company known for single-player games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and a bunch more including the upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to 2019's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Imagine being someone who works at Respawn or EA and seeing that tweet. Imagine being Zach Mumbach, a developer who used to work at EA and Visceral.
Mumbach was nowhere near alone in how he felt as the tweet has since been quoted over 17,000 times and has tons of responses (including a bunch of memes). Other developers who used to work for EA had similar tweets to Mumbach's in regards to how poorly they were treated by the company during their time there as well. Over the years, EA has closed over 10 studios including Visceral where Mumbach worked, and DreamWorks Interactive which was famous for making the Medal Of Honor series.
After closing numerous studios that made single-player games, maybe tweeting something that could be perceived as a shot at your consumers and developers might not be the best idea? Context is key, especially when it comes to social media; you might tweet or post something that you believe to be harmless, but it could very easily turn into a Public Relations nightmare with personal and professional ramifications.
But EA didn't soften their statement until almost four hours after the original tweet. EA does deserve a minuscule amount of credit for not deleting the original tweet - they did not try to hide or just ignore the fallout. They (as the tweet below says) took the 'L' and owned it.
People were justifiably angry, because it comes off as a personal attack and an ill-conceived one at that, given that EA isn't exclusively a maker of multiplayer games. Then it's worth considering the fact that EA's made a huge mess of its most recent multiplayer blockbuster, Battlefield 2042, and the recent reveal that it's currently working on a Battlefield single-player campaign. Not to mention Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, which will almost certainly be a single-player-focused game.
With EA's recent multiplayer output being so sub-standard, it could well be that the publisher will be relying on its single-player games to save some face in the upcoming years. With that in mind, maybe they should treat single-player gamers with a bit more humility if they want those people to play their games.