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EA lays off 1000 - link inside
paulytheb
Member UncommonPosts: 363
http://www.gamespot.com/news/ea-laying-off-up-to-1000-report-6371851
an excerpt from the article ~
The story is written by former EA employee and Burnout franchise product manager Derek Andersen and cites multiple sources within the company for the news. Andersen pointed to a variety of contributing factors for the cuts, noting that the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic did not meet internal sales estimates and is facing declining subscription numbers.
EDIT ** My apologies if this was a repost. I missed the other thread. I thought this was new news. Again, my apologies. **
( Note to self-Don't say anything bad about Drizzt.)
An acerbic sense of humor is NOT allowed here.
Comments
Sounds like they are punishing the poor saps at the bottom who probably do all the heavy lifting and know what they are doing , and ignoring the blithering idiots at the top who actually make the bad decisions. The result is that nothing changes. Except morale.
Ballerinas are always on their toes. Why don't they just get taller ballerinas?
This is so Sunday's news, your behind.
Bad thing is shit runs downhill, the suits that squandered the IP will still get their salaries. Reasons for the layoffs go furher than TOR as well. EA's ethics are finally catching up with them.
I'm glad I'm not in the game industry. It seems like a pretty unstable industry - more than average at least from my outside perspective.
I hope those people cut can find new jobs soon.
I'm not creative enough to have a signature
Fixed that for you, unfortunately :-(
I'm not creative enough to have a signature
I wish that were true...but as long as SOE is still kicking, my faith in humanity caring, is diminished.
*waits for the die-hards to explain it away*
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Guess work force is cheaper in Asia, eh? Kick some 1000 American jobs and hire 2000 Chinese for half the bucks.
I am so tired of locust capitalism.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
That's true, they are hiring in Asia as they cut jobs elsewhere. It's going to show in quality and only drag EA down more (meaning no disrespect to Asians but sorry, child slave labor shows in quality)
typical corporatism today, just like others on this thread i await the hardcore to explain this away as something other then TOR.
Hate that the suits can just do whatever they want and the rest of the universe can burn while they sit in their yachts and drink champagne. Typical, it's like what happened with the banks in 2008.
Nevermind the game. I feel bad for those people.
So, I'm curious, what happens when the layoffs that were supposed to happen last week, didn't, and were re-confirmed to be happening this week, don't? Will they be confirmed to be happening next week instead?
completely agree with you both, i just hope that even tho the signs look like it, we aren't all heading towards a firefly style economy where everyone is looking for any kind of job just to buy protein packs.
EA sucks just a fat greedy company they diserve to fail and go bankrupt
EA are just like activion bunch of suits only care for the money and using avertisment but production is of lame and pathetic QUIALITY
It's happening in Canada as well.
My sister was employed at a Tim Hortons in the town where I live for the last four years, then this year the owners brought in 13 new employees (all of whom were immigrants) and layed off 10 of the local employees. My sister included.
North America as a whole is just failing in this day and age.
How many months is this now since SWTOR has been out? Hmm, seems to be coming a BIT short on my 6month prediction that SWTOR would start bleeding numbers enough to show financially.
My predictions aside, I would have thought at least a MINIMUM of 3 diehard Bioware fans would have come in here by now to explain it away as "Natural market fluxuations" or something to that effect.
Bottom line is that even EA internals figures & numbers are trouncing all over apparent "wild" speculatorial numbers. 1,000 jobs is something you can't really afford to lose when your game has such high up-keep as SWTOR's "Voice Over" quest design has.
Here's hoping that the industry crushes SWTOR, and the linear WoW model, into oblivion so that future MMOs are actually half decent
!
I can dream can't i
?
[edit]: Forgot to mention that outsourcing to Asia for programmers is nothing new. When Bioware was first bought by EA they moved a good portion of their programming dev centres to Asia. Where do you think Origin & BattleLog for Bf3 were developed? They were outsourced to Asia. I thought this was common knowledge :x?
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
They knew the industry they were involved in. It's commonplace.
so you're happy that 1000 people got laid off because a company didn't make a game that you like? thats real nice of you. geez i mean i understand people are haters and all that but i didn't think people would actually be happy about people losing their jobs so they (the haters) can pat themselves on the back and offer this as proof that they were right.
What will be crushed is the subscription model, and half decent MMOs, nothing more.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
The majority of the people getting laid off were probably customer service employees. Since SWTOR has declined in subscription numbers over the past couple months it wouldn't be a big surprise that they trimmed down some of there staff. This is pretty normal in the gaming industry. A 1000 people may seem like a lot but I'm pretty sure they aimed a little high during their initial hiring phase. I just got hired at funcom doing customer service for TSW and if it doesn't sell well then I'll be released in 3 - 6 months. The fact that those 1000 people have experience working around a big title such as swtor it should be no problem for them to find a new job in the industry.
this was the same article posted here yesterday
http://startupgrind.com/2012/04/exclusive-electronic-arts-set-to-lay-off-500-employees/
EA is denying it but time will tell
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/ea-denies-rumored-layoffs-claims-business-as-usual/
EQ2 fan sites
I'm pretty sure they didn't can the entire SWTOR development team. I'm sure other games and developers suffered as well. Voted worst company overall also didnt help their stocks any.
I've always said I've noticed less population .....but i still enjoy the game and hope it remains for quite a while. No Star Wars MMO will ever fully live up to the expectation of fans of the IP.
I think any MMO going under is a bad thing. How many of you can revel in loss is beyond me. There is plenty of shit out there to play.Pick one or go wank yourself silly in a corner somewhere while imagining your perfect mmo.
When i had read it I was I thought it was a little arsh but reading your comment helped me realise that even if it's really hard, you can only go so far with bad buisness.
The crisis is putting everybody to hardship and it is only fair that paying customers get what they paid for.
When you start to sell only packaging-hype-franchise it is unfair to fired the staff packing the boxes when nothing sell anymore. BUt it's also unfair to the customers that bought a superbe amazing game like EA advertise it.
And it would appear that much of the product is not finished like it should have been for that money.
It's like gambling with money from the bank, go has far as you can then release whatever has been created till here.
But I think the point is that Fadedbomb is not happy for the layoff and that you should anger your comment to EA because nothing of this layoff got to do with SWTOR lovers or haters. It is just EA buisness practice that are bad and should be considered by any gamer bying a game with EA affilition on it.
Which is about anything. Play Minecraft?
Diablow 3, it sucks ...
considering the abomination that was the Syndicate remake
i hope they get in more shit and have to start selling their classic ips to people that will do them justice
I would love a new Magic Carpet, Dungeon Keeper, Daoc, Wing Commander, populos, ultima etc..
Just not made by anyone who has anything to do with EA.
Karma's a bitch. Sooner or later, she catches up to you. Looks like she finally caught up to EA's bullshit game design and anti consumer business practices.
Good. I hope Activision is next.
Hmm, good thing I held off on buying EA stock then.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky