EA's Profits Up, Workers Get Layoffs

Gamespot and GamesIndustry.biz has the news from yesterday's conference call where EA CEO Larry Probst reported higher earnings for his company in Q3, despite a small yearly decline. He also held forth on the future cost of next-gen games, which in his opinion will likely stay as high as $50 and could perhaps fetch more on retail shelves. Just before this story was to be published, Tim Butler wrote in with the news from 1Up.com that EA was laying off members of its LA studio. From the article: "According to sources close to the company, Electronic Arts is currently in the process of laying off between 50-70 team members from its minty-fresh new EA LA office. The teams affected worked on the poorly-recieved GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and the forthcoming Medal of Honor: Dogs of War FPS titles." Update: 01/27 06:34 GMT by Z : Update to the layoff article: "The first step is to rebalance the team. This has required us to let go 60 people -- from many different teams. There is no focus on any one team or any one class of individuals. It's a studio-wide thing to reset the business fundamentals and get the studio to the next level."

Comments

Re:Team Balancing ACT 2005

[Antonymous Flower]

there are simply too many willing-to-work-25-hours-a-day multimedia graduates

So there really is life on Mars?

Sweatshop 2005

[j1bb3rj4bb3r]

New from EA Games... Sweatshop 2005 where you start a 15 year career as a team manager putting out world class video games. You must keep your team happy-ish, while driving them to the brinks of insanity. New features include 'personal day approval' where you must decide whether letting your multimedia developer go to their mother's funeral is worth the slip in schedule. Transfer team members to other lower performing teams in order to maximize your cost/benefit ratio. Upgrade your staff with 'efficiency experts' for that extra paranoid boost of productivity. Move up the ranks of the corporate ladder while crushing those who stand in your way. Collect praise and bonuses for the slave labor of your subordinates.

I'd play it.

Re:I'll say it right now

[Capt'n Hector]

I'm bitter about today's PC gaming.

Really? You sure do a nice job covering that up; It's hardly noticable.

Not the first company you can think of!

[CrackedButter]

Replying with Microsoft, gets me modded as Funny or Flamebait.
Replying with SCO, gets me modded as either Troll or Insightful.
Replying with IBM gets me modded as Overrated.
So that leaves HP doesn't it? I can't keep up with who is our friend this week on slashdot.

Just think...

[elmegil]

if they laid off ALL their employees, their liabilities would be zero and their profits infinite!