EA Fires 5% of Its Staff

JorgeDeLaCancha writes "On the heels of the dispute between EA and Ubisoft, EA has recently announced the decision to fire five percent of their workforce, approximately 350 people. EA's recent announcement has nothing to do with game sales, but rather 'It's more reconciling the costs of learning new systems with what the needs of the new systems are.'"

Comments

Wow

[ZakuSage]

They have a lot of employees... no wonder they're able to churn out so many [re-]releases every year!

Re:EA

[voice_of_all_reason]

How do you really know this is a troll?

I mean, honestly. Isn't it at all possible that the heads of EA actually do wait 'till the end of the day, close the door to the executive boardroom, and let the goats loose and go to town?

I suggest (Score: 1, Implausible)

atleast they got treated semi-well when laid off..

[tont0r]

My friend was one of the people who was cut. He was given a nice severance package. He gets paid like normal until April. When April hits, he gets 1 months pay and gets to cash his vacation hours in. Also during the time between now and April, he still gets more vacation time.

However, they said he would have to come back the next day to get his stuff from his cube. He wasnt allowed to get it that day. Also, the second he was let go, all his access to the building was removed. I suppose that is just a precaution if the employee goes nuts though. :P

Not fired...

[lightspawn]

EA lays off 5% of its staff. Big difference.

Re:Not fired...

[Drachemorder]

I'm sure the two terms are treated equally when future work is sought.

Why do you think that? If someone is "laid off" it implies that there's something wrong with the company. If he's "fired" it implies there's something wrong with the employee. Companies fire people because they're bad employees; they lay them off for business reasons that often don't have anything at all to do with whether or not the employee is good at his job.

If I were a manager looking to hire someone, if I knew he'd been laid off I wouldn't hold that against him, but if I knew he'd been fired I would be very curious as to the reason.

Re:Great, More OT

[zephc]

Yeah, they fired the slackers who only do 80 hour work weeks.

Re:EA

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I mean, honestly. Isn't it at all possible that the heads of EA actually do wait 'till the end of the day, close the door to the executive boardroom, and let the goats loose and go to town?

Not since Sarbanes-Oxley.

Re:On the other hand

[symbolic]

It means that EA's CEO gets to keep his salary, bonuses and other perks intact.

No, most interviewers appreciate the difference.

[Richard Steiner]

"Fired" generally means that a person was terminated for some reason directly related to their work performance or some portion of their personal work-related activities, while "laid off" generally means that the termination was due to elements completely outside the person's control.

Unemployment benefits are generally available to the latter group with very little question (the employer makes the situation known to the state), while the qualifying for such benefits depends on specific circumstances in the former group's case (folks who get fired often have to go through a formal hearing process to determine whether or not UI benefits apply in their situation).

My boyfriend was also part of that 5%

[Hannah E. Davis]

As one of the more junior guys on the Need for Speed team, it really wasn't surprising that my boyfriend was caught in this round of layoffs. However, I find it a bit ironic that they would lay anyone off on one of their most profitable teams -- Most Wanted was top of the charts in Britain during the Christmas season (beating out even FIFA) and pretty damn popular in Europe and North America. Cutting on the teams that were actually losing money/not making enough of a profit would've made more sense to me.

He's not too choked up over it, though. I think he's more stressed than he's letting on, but he's been looking at the bright side: they're paying him quite well for the next few months to play the very game that caused their profits to drop *cough*WoW*cough* while he searches for a new and hopefully better job. Given that EA made him work 80+ hours per week last summer, including at least one occasion when he slept at the office on a Sunday night, this is probably a good time for him to find a job with more reasonable hours. Working every weekend for more than half the dev cycle of a game just ain't cool.

Re:MY HEAD ASPLODE!

[HardCase]

'It's more reconciling the costs of learning new systems with what the needs of the new systems are.'

Could a grammar nazi out there please change the syntax from PR Babble to English?

"You're fired."

Re:Heh.

[Phisbut]

Actually it is a good thing. Since they don't have their workers signed to a non compete clause they are free to work for another game company. Depending on how the clauses are worded at Ubisoft they would be fired but still unable to work for a competitor (or possibly even do their own game development) for a certain period of time.

Former Ubisoft-Montreal employee here. Their non-compete clause is only enforceable if you quit, not if they fire you or lay you off or however you call it. It's to prevent developers from willfully going to the competitor.