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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."
If you had read the friendly article, you would have seen the update:
After speaking to Neil Young, General Manager of the EA LA studio, it's now clear that the confirmed 60 layoffs are not heavily confined to one team or another, countering early rumors that the GoldenEye or Medal of Honor teams were specifically targerted -- countering the implication that the underperformance of certain games might have been the catalyst.
Maybe EA is shaking its developers up for the foreseeable battle with TakeTwo?
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.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
shouldn't they be held responsible?
Why should they be carried by better producing teams if they couldn't?
A business acting like a business! Boooooooo! Hissssssssss! Profits up and they fired people? Well, good god, only evil can be afoot. There's no other explination!
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
I didn't hear that Rogue Agent did badly. I bought the thing and loved it.. yeah, it had some aspects that were obviously a knock off of halo, but some of it was innovative for an FPS, and parts of it were a hell of a lot of fun.
BOFHs writing games? Yeah right, I hope his ass was canned.
EA is evil. EA represents the suit-and-tie, corporate-owned, mainstream conversion of the gaming industry. They represent cheesy CEOs coming over from other failed companies who are only getting into the game industry because they see massive annual revenues from this thing, not because they're into games. Merely ten years ago, we had a sort of Silver Age of gaming, from Doom to Descent to Command & Conquer to Myst to Simcity 2000 to...well, you were there. It all spanned multiple genres. Where is it now? The good games are far and few between. Now, it's the yearly update of the new Tony Hawk game, complete with skateboard fat clowns that spray graffiti, and the "underground racing" games where morons who think neon lights are a good investment tell each other how "sick" their "tricked out" cars are as obnoxious, over-compressed, repetitive rap music blasts while you race down wet, nighttime city streets. Because that's "underground!" Meanwhile, the PC industry purposely speeds itself up faster and faster to increase the yearly bullshit upgrade cycle. If you don't have a video card with two fans taking up two slots in your translucent, neon-lit PC case, your penis just isn't big enough to play the latest id Software game made up of approximately 90% pitch black darkness on-screen. Innovation? Fuck it, let's fuck up Deus Ex so we can get on the console in time while we destroy Fallout 3. After that, we'll suck the teat of the latest Microsoft DirectX release, focus-group tested with a new name ("DirectNext! Because it's the NEXT one!") guaranteed to generate 87% profit margins on new graphics card updates. And that blazing fast PC you custom-built last year? Fuck it, better ditch that because your goddamn RAM chips aren't operating at a fast enough speed to melt the paint off the wall and generate enough electromagnetic fields to shrivel the balls off your legs as you read the latest paid-for review in a dying game magazine.
I'm bitter about today's PC gaming.
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.
*yawn*
The cynical answer to this would be "no comment." So obvious is business' contempt for education and an honest day's work now that it becomes pointless to even discuss it.
But each time anyone attempts to emphasize the fact that business has turned its back on just about everything except its quarterly earnings, we get "nobody owes you a living so get over it."
The fact is, it is wrong to fire people like this. It is absolutely wrong. These companies are damaging, and in a lot of cases destroying the careers of people who work for a living. It isn't fair and it isn't right.
EA has no problem investing millions and tens of millions to build colossal glittering corporate edifices where they can hold meetings about whom to fire this week. But on payday they claim costs are too high.
W-4 employment is obsolete.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
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.
Jonathanjk.com
That being said, after reading all of the crap that EA has been putting their employees through, I refuse to buy a game from them anymore. The last sports game I bought was Tiger Woods Golf 2004 for my PS2, and that WILL be the last game I'll buy from EA. Period. I refuse to give my money to a company that gets away with the slave labor antics and rediculous headcutting that EA has graced us with. While all those 100-hour-a-week programmers get sent to unemployment, EA's CEO still gets his 7-figure salary and a fat bonus. And YES, I realize that my Old Navy jeans are made in China and my polo shirt was made in some third-world country. Exploitation goes on worldwide, and I've come to terms with it. This is just one battle that I choose to let affect my purchasing decisions.
So basically EA, fuck you. I'll take my $100 a year that I would have spent on your products and go to one of the two or three remaining competitors left in console gaming. Or maybe I'll go buy some basement-made games like Uplink instead. Or maybe I'll just say screw you all and go buy used NES games, which still entertain me way more than your 'Sports Title $YEAR' titles ever will. Either way EA, you can kiss my money goodbye.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA. ..."
Well, long time ago, people felt threatened by machines that were replacing manual labor, so they simply smashed and broke the machines.
;-)
They probably weren't right. But...
But it seems to me that perhaps a random lynching or two of scrooge-ish CEOs by angry ex-employees might deliver a potent message to any prospective pursuants of this squeeze-then-kill strategy. You know, make them think twice or somesuch...
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)
Please disengage this childish and silly crusade.
Hey, what's this? Anonymous Coward? Let's see who's hiding behind that mask!
(removes mask from Anonymous Coward)
*GASP* It's some guy hired by EA!
"Yes, and if you hadn't unmasked me, i'd probably had been successful at shutting up those meddling kids!"
Another case solved!
Let me rephrase TFA:
"As a good-will gesture, EA has cooperated with our demands and released two groups of hostages, who obviously seemed overexhausted to deliver inferior products. The hostages are currently under rehabilitation (read as: Finding a better job). Due to the fact that this good-will gesture resulted in profits for the company, EA decided that it will release more groups of hostages in the course of the year. Maybe they're not so bad after all.
And here's Mike with the weather."
Maybe they shouldn't have spent all their money on an all glass building 1/2 mile from the beach, compelete with full soccer field. Perks are nice, but nothing beats a reliable paycheck.
in bed.
You do not need to produce quality when you have created yourself a monopoly. The future for EA will be crappy sports titles for the small price of $99.99
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
The two biggest franchises around are Grand Theft Auto and The Sims. EA owns one, Take-Two (the newsworthy competitor to EA) owns the other
EA's The Sims is a Maxis creation. While EA did buy Maxis, The Sims was originally a Will Wright creation, and was not a "star product" like others were. GTA is a Rockstar game also; published by Take-Two (perhaps in the same position as Maxis and EA)..
Don't confuse publisher with developer. While the publisher will often fund the developer's projects (and and own the IP), they are still the creations of the smaller developer.. rarely will you see a blockbuster be developed in-house by the publisher..
The theory goes that when you do well, you get paid well because of it. At least, that's the theory, although it doesn't quite jive with the explanation I get for why CEOs make twenty times what I do and get raises whether or not the company does well.
If companies have the rights of people, why shouldn't I expect them to behave as I am expected to? Perhaps that's the point - companies and their investors get the benefits of an entity with the rights of a person and which is exempt from the responsibilities that that person would have. You can't eat the seed corn and expect there to be a harvest next fall, but hey that corn tastes good, doesn't it?
This sense of fairness is amplified by the nearness many people here might have towards the employees. The people getting fired could be them, after all - people who like their work but don't feel like getting squeezed when times are good and screwed when times are bad. And all along, those that made the good/bad decisions for which they paid walk away with their pockets full.
This is just business as usual. I guess it's too much to hope for that the usual wouldn't suck so badly.
As far as your comment that this is "certainly not stuff that matters to most people here," this is, in fact, important to a lot of people here. This is news that actually affects people. It's certainly much more significant than "Oregon's Governor Backs Open Source Development" or "Running Windows Viruses Under Linux" as I'm sure the number of people who live in Oregon or the number of people who want to run Windows viruses under Linux is much lower than the number of gamers in the world.
It was all I could manage not to mod you down, as I seriously don't think something so uninformed should be modded +5. However, I really don't like to mod people down, so I'm saving my points to mod up more worthwhile comments.
You are not going to buy from a company because they laid off 60 people?
So exactly what company in America do you buy from that has never laid off people?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I don't want to have to defend EA here, but do we really know if they're worse than the rest of the industry? I'd never work for a company like that, but let's remember that this whole thing started from the blog of a wife of an EA programmer. Now we have slashdot posting everything they do. I'm not saying they *aren't* the antichrist, but let's actually consider first whether there's some manipulation or just plain shoddy reporting at fault too.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Nothing gets the slashdot geeks fired up quite as much as a good firing. I'll tell you a little secret -- most every large company does this. They hire people like crazy, then every couple years they fire all the ones that didn't work out as a group and call it a layoff.
Doing it this way prevents all sorts of legal issues where people sue for getting fired without cause. If they are part of a group layoff, the company can simply call it scaling back the workforce and largely indemnify themselves.
Most of those fired would likely have been fired months ago when it was determined that they were incompetent, but doing it that way is too messy. Having been through many of these 'cycles' at the company I work for, I always find it interesting that within one month of the firing, the company is once again hiring again, only those fired are inelligable for re-employment for a minimum of one-year (company policy -- sneaky sneaky).
This whole thing is likely little more than a company getting rid of the bad apples without having to worry about the lawyers.
You can have one of two companies:
One has 100% "original and ongoing investors" and no workers.
The other has 100% workers and no "original and ongoing investors".
Which has a chance of succeeding?
I ask this question to point out that the workers are very important to a company's operations. Moreso than the investors. ( note, investment is good, yada yada, etc, etc. but put it in perspective, workers *and* investors make the economy work ). EA also would not exist without it's workers.
emt 377 emt 4
if they laid off ALL their employees, their liabilities would be zero and their profits infinite!
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Anybody who's seen Michael Moore's The Big One would know that this is the standard way that companies operate. Lay off everyone just when you're starting to go good. Sad to see a Canadian company doing it though.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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.
Typical corporation shit..Profits are up by huge percentages but "hey lets lay people off....". Its not the games as EA usually puts out shallow crap just the usual corporate greed.
Stop whining if you lost your job. Become a damn consultant! I was making $4500 a month working at a fulltime job as a grad fresh out of college with an M.S. I got laid off with their entire R&D department. So instead of looking around for another corporate butt to kiss, "please massuh, give me a job...", I started my own consulting company at the age of 25.
Six months later, I'm raking in $8100 a month and surprisingly no one questions my age. I have two patents in the works, and I'm on the verge of renting an office down the street so I can walk to work. I and only I am responsible for my own success or failure.
Life rocks!
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
I have in front of me the sleeve of Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Set, circa 1984. On the back is says the following:
ABOUT OUR COMPANY: We're an association of electronic artists who share a common goal. We want to fulfill the potential of personal computing. That's a tall order. But with enough imagination and enthusiasm we thing there's a good chance for success. Our products, like this progra, are evidence of our intent. If you'd like to get involved, please write us at:
Electronic Arts
2755 Campus Drive
San Mateo, CA 94403
It sucks what happens when the f'ing suits take over. Oh how I long for the golden days...
-R
Rebalance the team, reset the business fundamentals, next level... what is this guy actually saying? This roughly translates to "firing 60 random scapegoats to safe managements' ass for leading the studio in the wrong direction".
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