"According to a report on Startup Grind, a site that normally deals with tech companies and their founders, publisher Electronic Arts will very soon lay off as many as 1000 employees.
Originally planned to take place last week, the lay offs have reportedly been slightly postponed, though may now take place " as soon as this week".
The report claims between 500-1000 employees will be affected. That's a lot of people, even for a company as big as Electronic Arts.
Startup Grind's report goes on to speculate the layoffs are a result of a disappointing 2011 in which a few hit games (like Battlefield 3) had their sales overshadowed by an overspend on marketing, expensive acquisitions and disappointing subscriber numbers for big-budget MMO Star Wars: Old Republic.
We've contacted EA for confirmation, and will update if we hear back."
EA is infamous for this kind of behavior. I am not surprised...
Then you'd have to have a seperate section call infirmary where you list IP's they've ruined but haven't killed just yet oO!
The lists would be so long though, who would have the time to take on such an enormous task.
Someone already did:
The DikuMUD launched in 1991, and all other MUDs came after that it seems unlikely that Dragons Gate would start before MUDs became a reality. Just saying...
Actually Dragon's Gate launched by GENie in 1989... It was the first. AOL picked it up in 1990 or 1991.
Well if you want to get crazy technical AberMUD came out in 1988... It can easily be debated as Roy Trubshaw wrote a mud in 1978, they really didn't become popular until early 1990's with LPMUD and the DikuMUD...
the marketing for bf3 cost way to much,just presenting bf3 a E3 with the big sign on front most have cost alot,
its Sad for Dice , i loved them so much but EA is destroying everything,
But game developers should know by now right, so maybe also littlebit there own fault?
Its all about money thats how EA lure game companys to join them and then destroy them so eventually they dont have any competion left thats there longterm plan hehe
Not sure if it has to do so much with actual sales though. The amount of copies sold at launch and around 1.7 mil subs in the first few months (though I am unsure what they are now), is still a hell of a lot of money. And running a launched game requires much less people compared to developing one. So if they have too much developers for the amount of projects in the pipeline, layoffs like that are unavoidable.
Don't leave out what Lucas gets. I have no proof of percentage but have seen claims of 35%. If it's true and you can bet it's substancel whatever it is, it's cutting big into EA's profits.
True.
To kind of piggyback on this, also consider how expensive SWTOR was to develop. I never knew the $$$ involved, but everyone can agree that it was one of the most expensive MMORPGs ever made. Alot of money was thrown at it.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
This happened at Blizzard earlier this year too. After the massive amount of subscriber losses they have to make 100s of people redundant, including a friend of mine who was working in their Ireland office. (instead of getting rid of bad managers which probably caused the problem, like in most companies).
The active players on SWTOR did jump a LOT after the 1.2 patch though. I'm seeing maybe 2x the number of people on the fleet compared to last week.
the marketing for bf3 cost way to much,just presenting bf3 a E3 with the big sign on front most have cost alot,
its Sad for Dice , i loved them so much but EA is destroying everything,
But game developers should know by now right, so maybe also littlebit there own fault?
Its all about money thats how EA lure game companys to join them and then destroy them so eventually they dont have any competion left thats there longterm plan hehe
Sadly game developers know but the problem is, not all of them have the resources to fight of EA. If EA can't simply buy them they attempt to do a hostile takeover. EA has the "By any means neccessary" philosophy.
They don't care about the gamers, the employees, the family of the employees, the long term or short term negative effect they have on the market or the industry, etc.
They simply don't care and many of the developers out there really don't have a choice. They can either take EA's money or EA will simply find some other means of gaining control.
Originally posted by GrayGhost79 Originally posted by SonicTHI
Originally posted by GrayGhost79
We could always start an EA IP Cemetary lol. Then you'd have to have a seperate section call infirmary where you list IP's they've ruined but haven't killed just yet oO! The lists would be so long though, who would have the time to take on such an enormous task.
Someone already did:
Ahh so they have, thank you! Isn't there a new C&C: Generals 2 coming out using Dice's Frostbite engine? Looks ok, other than that I too liked the SimCity series since the Super Nintendo days, I still have SimCity 4 on my laptop and PC but it isn't as good as SimCity 3000 or 2000 (best one), EA can fuck up The Sims series for all I care, just leave the SimCity ones alone but Cities XL is looking better (online interaction) but I have yet to try it.
EA is attempting to compete with Steam with the Origin launch, IMO I think they're wasting time.
Sounds about right. Take the income that would of been spent towards these employees and use it as a bonus/gain towards the CEO & upper heads as to make stocks look more better as affable investments.
the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, thats how the game works right now.
Comments
EA is infamous for this kind of behavior. I am not surprised...
Ahh so they have, thank you!
The DikuMUD launched in 1991, and all other MUDs came after that it seems unlikely that Dragons Gate would start before MUDs became a reality. Just saying...
Actually Dragon's Gate launched by GENie in 1989... It was the first. AOL picked it up in 1990 or 1991.
Well if you want to get crazy technical AberMUD came out in 1988... It can easily be debated as Roy Trubshaw wrote a mud in 1978, they really didn't become popular until early 1990's with LPMUD and the DikuMUD...
Anyway, the point is moot...
All this does is make me despise inept and greedy leadership even more.
1000 potential families affected because of incompetent talking heads and self-proclaimed pontiffs.
Agreed
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Drunk posting in wrong topic. Please ignore me
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Made me giggle....Mostly because I've done that before, lol.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
But game developers should know by now right, so maybe also littlebit there own fault?
Its all about money thats how EA lure game companys to join them and then destroy them so eventually they dont have any competion left thats there longterm plan hehe
Gota say it's a regular occourance for me also lol.
To kind of piggyback on this, also consider how expensive SWTOR was to develop. I never knew the $$$ involved, but everyone can agree that it was one of the most expensive MMORPGs ever made. Alot of money was thrown at it.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
This happened at Blizzard earlier this year too. After the massive amount of subscriber losses they have to make 100s of people redundant, including a friend of mine who was working in their Ireland office. (instead of getting rid of bad managers which probably caused the problem, like in most companies).
The active players on SWTOR did jump a LOT after the 1.2 patch though. I'm seeing maybe 2x the number of people on the fleet compared to last week.
Sadly game developers know but the problem is, not all of them have the resources to fight of EA. If EA can't simply buy them they attempt to do a hostile takeover. EA has the "By any means neccessary" philosophy.
They don't care about the gamers, the employees, the family of the employees, the long term or short term negative effect they have on the market or the industry, etc.
They simply don't care and many of the developers out there really don't have a choice. They can either take EA's money or EA will simply find some other means of gaining control.
It's like the Gaming Industry Mafia lol.
Ahh so they have, thank you!
Isn't there a new C&C: Generals 2 coming out using Dice's Frostbite engine? Looks ok, other than that I too liked the SimCity series since the Super Nintendo days, I still have SimCity 4 on my laptop and PC but it isn't as good as SimCity 3000 or 2000 (best one), EA can fuck up The Sims series for all I care, just leave the SimCity ones alone but Cities XL is looking better (online interaction) but I have yet to try it.
EA is attempting to compete with Steam with the Origin launch, IMO I think they're wasting time.
Sounds about right. Take the income that would of been spent towards these employees and use it as a bonus/gain towards the CEO & upper heads as to make stocks look more better as affable investments.
the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, thats how the game works right now.