The Top 7... evil corporations

Umbrella Corporation – Resident Evil 5

A brief history of the company:

The Umbrella company began in 1968, but not as an evil rainy day accessory manufacturer.



Their official line is that they’re a bioengineering pharmaceutical company formed by three men, Ozwell E. Spencer, Dr. James Marcus and Edward Ashford (not that you care what their names are), all set on dipping their greedy hands into the fields of medical hardware, defense and computers - evil computers.  Of course, while those are all profitable, successful and legal sectors of the Umbrella Corp., the company can’t seem to keep itself from developing viruses to turn people into nearly invincible zombies and “accidentally” infecting highly populated areas.



Why it’s eviler than your company:

Umbrella’s bad rep comes mostly from their zombie virus manufacturing habit. The three boys who started the company were never really interested in putting their MBAs to work. They’d stumbled onto something they named the “Progenitor virus” and a company became a cover for their spooky lab work. The name “Umbrella” was probably just to throw off investigators. Unfortunately, Ashford died shortly after the company’s inception, and Spencer had Dr. Marcus killed because he was jealous of his research skills.


Above: An Umbrella employee working hard on science

Afterwards, Spencer was able to continue Marcus’s work, and he developed the most powerful bio-weapon ever: the T-virus. Until Umbrella perfected the new best virus ever, the G-virus. Also, after that, the T-Veronica virus and the Nemesis parasite were, at one time or another, the most deadly virus ever, depending on which Resident Evil you’re playing.

Aperture Science – Portal

A brief history of the company: 

According to their website, Aperture Science began as a small science team, created by Cave Johnson in 1953, to manufacture shower curtains for the US military, but while experimenting with new plastics they stumbled onto a way to create a quantum tunnel through physical space – just kidding! That’s ridiculous.

In 1978 Cave Johnson got mercury poisoning and went crazy. That prompted him to split the company into three major divisions. Instead of focusing on military shower accessories, Aperture started its Heimlich counter-maneuver research, a Take-A-Wish Foundation and – the third division – a “man sized ad-hoc quantum tunnel through physical space with possible applications as a shower curtain.”

The first two divisions failed completely, but the third got the attention of the US government after initial tests showed promising results. Similarly to their chief competitors, the Black Mesa Research Facility, Aperture Science struck it big when they started receiving the big government bucks, which means your tax dollars funded two of the top seven evilest companies – super.



Why it’s eviler than your company:

In 1986, Aperture began research on a “genetic lifeform and disk operating system” or GLaDOS, but the scientists got a bit too excited and someone hit the on switch before installing the morality core – a totally real part of all disk operating systems. As it was designed to do, GLaDOS assumed control of the entire secret underground science facility, including a deadly neurotoxin Aperture was storing a bit too close to the AC. But without all of its philosophical hardware installed, GLaDOS decided to vent the toxin into the air, as supercomputers have a proclivity to do when allowed to run secret bases.


Above: Modern secret science laboratories are run on Windows

The next evil step was to force solitary prisoners through a series of puzzle chambers to, presumably, test their ability to manipulate Aperture’s handheld portal generating device, rate their psychological strength and get them to have tons of fun.

GLaDOS, as everyone knows, promised participants cake at the end of the ordeal, but instead of receiving a delicious dessert treat, participants were generally lit on fire. Certain death isn’t an unheard of reward for many corporations (traditionally it’s paired with a gold watch), but the false expectations of cake paired with the promise of death make Aperture the evilest company ever.

Jul 20, 2009 

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