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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."
shouldn't they be held responsible?
Why should they be carried by better producing teams if they couldn't?
Don't look at this as a layoff.
This is an invitation to enter the field of merchandising the games they built directly to consumers at the retail level. WalMart, Best Buy and Target are all hiring, and can use people knowledgable about the games themselves.
Seriously, how much money does that company make from building these games? All the hard work, blood, sweat and tears that go into being an EA employee and this is all they have to give their developers. And you know their executives are going to receive higher bonuses this year for trimming the fat.
I guess all we can say is thank you for the nedless hours of high-tech distraction your guys have provided us, at least the gaming community appreciates you.
M
well layoffs is a sure way to get profits up. For the next few quarters at least, then you gotta pay the pipper. Of course the CEO will probably have graduated onto bigger and better things...
You can find anybody to work for any amount you wish to pay. The "best ones" != the ones that work the longest hours. Someone once said if you can't get it done in 35 hours a week you are not qualified for the job. Insane job description notwithstanding.
BOFHs writing games? Yeah right, I hope his ass was canned.
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.
... no matter what they have convinced themselves of or how many developers they buy out.
I can already tell you that if every next-gen EA game comes out on the shelves at a $50+ price point, I'll simply turn to other games (or, more slyly, wait until the games appear used - in which case EA gets no profit out of the resale). They may hold certain niches, but they don't own the market
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
not all businesses are alike. pursuing profits isn't mutually exclusive with treating its employees with respect.
the way EA is doing business is one way, and it's their way of doing things. personally, i'd never work for or buy products from company that seems to show absolutely no compassion in its business practice or for its employees. that's my way of doing things in response to such companies. and i doubt that i'm alone.
shmaybe..
And it's undeniable that EA is in a good position to pull this kind of team-balancing stunt, because there are simply too many willing-to-work-25-hours-a-day multimedia graduates. If you come across an apple tree full of apples, you'll surely pick the best ones too.
Maybe they're getting ready to ship development overseas, too, it's not beyond possibility, as we've seen all too much of in IT and Engineering.
Why pay coders chicken feed when they can pay someone off-shore a fraction of chicken feed.
Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy about the company which brought us M.U.L.E. and Mail Order Monsters, back in the day.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If you are someone who actually makes games, ie. the engineers, EA is an absolutely fabulous place to work. Although there are many studios all over the place, working conditions are wonderful. You're not going to be working on anything ground braking most likely, but that is the tradeoff.
However, if you are just another interchangeable cog, ie. artists and low to mid level producers, you will of course be worked to death and discarded when no longer needed. Shit like that happens when you have skills with very low marketplace value.
I'm sure it would. Unfortunately, that message would almost surely be: ``Hire in India, so they can't reach you when you lay them off.''
You think offshoring is popular _now_? Just wait.
See what I've been reading.
And I'm sure the people in charge at EA feel really bad about it as they deposit bag after bag of money into the bank.
I'd be shocked if the US doesn't lose 50% of its programming/development jobs over the next 15 years. There's virtually no reason to keep the majority of them here in the states except quality.. and quality is proving to be no reason at all. Of course, some will still survive, but The History Channel still finds a modern day blacksmith and put him on TV once in awhile.
I'm sure I'll be flamed and/or modded flame bait for saying such a thing, but 15 years from now people will claim they saw it coming in 2005, just like me. Such is life.
This doesn't change society they way you describe it. These 60 people aren't broken and useless. They'll go and find new jobs. Maybe in the same industry or a different one. That's no tragedy. It's a good thing because then workers know they need to keep improving their skills. I don't expect to work in the same job from college to grave and neither should you.
Oh, Edmund, can it be true? that I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of purest green?
Oh, and that's better?
Not necessarily....but it's accurate, unlike your statement.
Oh, we should feel better they only screwed 60 people out of their jobs for no reason at all.
Again, better or not, that's debatable....but your statement was again, inaccurate. Didn't you read the article or the post you replied to that pointed the information out?
Can you substantiate your claim that 60 people got "screwed" out of their jobs for no reason at all? Or is this just more angry anti-corporate ranting that produced the previous inaccuracies?
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Why not just call it a temp job? I have two friends that work in the gaming industry (one does sound the other does character). Both have been laid off multiple times. Why? The major project they were on was done with and there were no new projects on the table, so they were laid off. The first time for both (they worked together at first) it was a small company so that was understandable.. but from my limited knowledge this seems to be the norm.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Exactly. BF42 ... a great game. But when I look on the shelves and see what to me look like just clones everywhere I think "why bother ... I've had that experience already". Not fair on the developers of those other games but its just human nature. It seems to me, from my limited view, that EA makes just variants of a small set of game types, yeah they're well made and all but if I'm going to plonk down hard plastic for a game I don't want something like I already have. Do I intend to buy more EA? Well maybe, but not likely.
Bitter and proud of it.
That's one theory. It certainly has enough precedent.
However, there's another historical theory that says newbies get less vacation time, vesting, and so on. So it may also be that senior employees are the actual "dead weight" by some straaaaange coincidence.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]