For the past eight years Choice, Australia’s biggest independent consumer organisation, has been running the Shonkys — an awards ceremony that names and shames Australia’s ‘shonkiest’ products and services. The Shonkys are taking place right Yono Rummy now and EA Australia has just won an ‘award’ for its handling of the debacle that was the Sim City launch https://kotaku.com/your-complete-guide-to-the-simcity-disaster-5991077 In a tweet making the announcement Choice claimed that EA Australia won the award for “making customers pay to exercise their human rights” by charging consumers $2.48 a minute to complain about Sim City’s troubled launch on the EA Australia tech support line.cnx.cmd.push(function(){cnx({"playerId":"e3616d04-4972-4839-a63a-c6975e2e9731","settings":{"advertising":{"macros":{"AD_UNIT":"/23178111854/od.kotaku.com/article","CHILD_UNIT":"article","POST_ID":"1453761200","POST_TYPE":"post","CHANNEL":"uncategorized","SECTION":"","SUBSECTION":"","CATEGORIES":"uncategorized","TAGS":"","NOP":"0"},"timeBeforeFirstAd":0}}}).render("cnx-player-main")}); When Sim City launched as an online only product there was outrage, after consumers literally could not play the product they paid for, when EA’s server broke beneath the weight of incredible demand. That launch, and EA’s handling of that launch, was problematic to say the least. During the launch Yono All APP EA announced it would not be providing Origin users a refund on the product, a move that went against the ACCC’s code of conduct. EA Australia later released a note stating that it would comply with consumer rights laws in Australia. Regardless, it was an extremely flawed product on day one and beyond. In addition to the award, Choice also sent l86 a letter to EA Australia demanding it drop the $2.48 a minute charge on its support line: “[T]he very least EA can do is scrap the $2.48 a-minute fee on your Australian support line, and ensure that you test your products based on real world situations before launching them to unsuspecting customers.” You can read the whole letter here We’ve contacted EA locally and will update when we receive a response. This post originally appeared on Kotaku Australia, where Mark Serrels is the Editor. You can follow him on Twitter, if you’re into that sort of thing.