Sometimes, power leads to foolishness and irresponsibility.

Earlier this month, my university became the center of national controversy when a group of six students, all part of the ASUCI Legislative Council, voted to disallow the display of any flag—including the American flag—from the lobby of one of UCI’s student body offices. The result was public outrage both within and outside of campus community; the university chancellor called the action “outrageous and indefensible” and the student body president decried the decision as “an attack on American values.” UCI’s Facebook page has since been littered with hundreds of negative reviews, and ASUCI was forced to cancel its latest Legislative Counsel meeting due to “a viable threat of violence.”

All of this resulted from the lack of foresight on the part of the six undergraduate representatives who serve, at an official capacity, a campus of over thirty thousand students. The folly of the few resulted in the defamation of our university’s name, despite the fact that we are one of the top public Ivy schools in the country.

Earlier this month, Electronic Arts decided to shut down Maxis, the long-standing developer of the Sim games—including The Sims and SimCity—by closing its Emeryville studio and merging its other divisions with various other EA development teams. Maxis, which was founded in 1987, was acquired by EA in 1997, and thrived under the publisher until the 2013 release and disaster of SimCity, where EA allegedly pushed to include unnecessary online features onto the final product in an effort to integrate the company’s Origin service into as many games as it possibly could. As a result, the game launched at a nearly unplayable state due to server issues, problems that would not be fixed for months. The launch of 2014’s The Sims 4 sparked even more controversy as fans became convinced that EA was hiding even the most basic features of the game behind paid DLC.

Maxis was eventually closed due to EA’s disregard for developer independence, instead opting towards implementing their DRM and DLC strategies into what could have been highly successful and quality titles. The folly of the few resulted in Maxis closing their doors even with over twenty-five years of revolutionary games under its belt.

There are more examples of this everywhere. Ubisoft’s decision to delay 2013’s Rayman Legends just weeks before its scheduled launch caused unrest among both fans and its developers, the latter of which were “pissed” at the move and held a public protest in front of their office; the decision arguably caused Rayman Legends to underperform in the market. And in that same year, during Microsoft’s unveiling of the Xbox One, the company’s PR team failed to properly communicate the platform’s controversial DRM scheme, sparking near universal outrage across gamers and the press; by the time the company realized its mistakes, the damage had already been done, and the market shifted in favor of Sony’s PlayStation 4.

All too often, the actions of a few individuals end up affecting thousands of others, and to no one’s surprise either. All institutions have some sort of hierarchy, but with the advent of social media, it has become easier for plebeians to get together and voice against the oligarchs. Unfortunately, not everyone cares; Ubisoft will continue to charge for horse armor and Square Enix will continue to sell virtual screensavers so long as it makes them money. But some do; Microsoft cancelled their controversial DRM plans for the Xbox One just months after its announcement, and it arguably saved them from launching a failed product.

Here at UCI, things have slowly gone back to normal. Once in a while, we still see a proud patriot waving red, white, and blue in front of our school, but it no longer fazes us. The legislation was never enacted anyways; the executive council vetoed it almost immediately after the controversy started. Was it because of the public outrage against it, or did the council act in complete agency? Regardless, it serves as a reminder that every so often, someone with more power than you will make a decision that you do not like—but that does not necessarily mean you are powerless against it.