EA Chicago Studio To Close

Geoff Keighley, who is guest-editing Kotaku this week, has the official release from EA that their Chicago studio is closing. The 150 employees that used to work at the site are trying to be placed throughout the rest of the EA structure, while the games on tap for development there are currently on hold. The release is fairly terse when describing the reason the studio is being closed: "Each team is responsible for staying on a reasonable path to profitability. Sticking to that strategy is what gives us the financial resources and flexibility to take risks on new projects. Unfortunately, EA Chicago hasn't been able to meet that standard. The location has grown dramatically in the past three years while revenue from the games developed there has not. The number of employees has grown from 49 in 2004 to 146 people currently in the new facility in downtown Chicago. As it stands, EA Chicago has no expectation of hitting our profitability targets until FY2011 or later."

Comments

I'm confused

[DarkMantle]

It says in the memo that they have 146 employees. But in the articles opening paragraph that they have 150+. If that's how they count, no wonder the physics for the vehicles in BF2142 are off.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Battlefield 2150+.

Gee, that's a shame.

[rob1980]

Now where will people in Chicago have to go for 100 hour work weeks?

Re:Gee, that's a shame.

[the_humeister]

Now where will people in Chicago have to go for 100 hour work weeks?

why, almost any medical residency of course! nothing like overworked, sleep-deprived medical professionals taking care of your health!

Making an example

[Dada]

EA middle managers regularly tell employees that the head office watches each studio's performance carefully. The subtext is of course that the least performing studios could suffer layoffs or outright be shut down.

I guess they weren't bluffing...

Re:Could see this coming..

[eln]

I hear the developers at the Miami branch were executed.

EA's strategy

[zdude255]

"Sticking to that strategy is what gives us the financial resources and flexibility to take risks on new projects." It's strategies like this that ensure we have such original games from EA like [Famous Person] [Sport] 200X.

Re:EA's strategy

[sykopomp]

Actually, it's Madden and other sports games that sell a ton and bring EA lots of profits. While you may be put off by the idea that they might even mention innovation and creativity as part of their 'strategy', remember that all that funding that's going into Spore (and a couple of other actually good games, depending on who you ask) has to come from somewhere.

Translation:

[Cinnamon]

They didn't develop buggy games and slam them out the door fast enough. Let this be a lesson to the rest of you: Make crap faster.

Re:Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why they closed EA Chicago.

Now they can afford to open EA Chennai, EA Bangladesh, EA Bangalore, EA Delhi and EA Beijing.

But remember, it has nothing to do with being cheaper and having less labor laws to deal with. It's because they're far smarter and better educated than anyone who worked in EA Chicago because there are no smart or hard working people left in this country!

Re:What did they make?

[Ykant]

As I recall, they handled the last couple of iterations of Fight Night. They also did the Def Jam Icon game. My hope is that the people at EA who thought that game was worth selling are out of a job as well.

EA buying and selling...

[NeutronCowboy]

So - Pandemic and Bioware are bought for $860M, which amounts to over $1 million per person. EA Chicago, which advertised as late as October of last year that it's a happening place for high-tech game development, gets closed because it's not projected to hit its profitability targets.

Can I ask? What the fuck is going on at EA? Do they even have a clue what they want? All I see is EA shitting itself down the drain. The saddest part? The grunts - the devs, testers and other peons who slave in countless death marches - will get fired, while the execs will get millions in severance packages.

Re:EA buying and selling...

[jollyreaper]

Can I ask? What the fuck is going on at EA? Do they even have a clue what they want? All I see is EA shitting itself down the drain. The saddest part? The grunts - the devs, testers and other peons who slave in countless death marches - will get fired, while the execs will get millions in severance packages. Look on the bright side: this is like a giant tree in the forest, massive and imposing but rotten at the core. Once it falls the canopy opens, sunlight reaches the forest floor and new saplings now have a chance to take its place. I for one am looking forward to the mighty crash.

Re:EA buying and selling...

[badasscat]

Can I ask? What the fuck is going on at EA? Do they even have a clue what they want?

It seems pretty clear what they want from the press release, which spells it out in no uncertain terms. They want profitability. Nothing wrong with that; they're a business, and this is a capitalist economy. You don't like it, either go somewhere else or vote your conscious for political candidates who believe in changing it, but don't blame EA for acting the way they're supposed to act within the system in which they exist.

This studio grew by 300% with no corresponding growth in profits. What is a business supposed to do? They're not running a charity for these employees.

Yes, I'm sure the hours were long and hard - I've been through it, working for a game publisher myself for 3 1/2 years. But I still understand EA's perspective. When you hire a bunch of people, you expect those people to increase your overall productivity, not just collect a paycheck, which is what it amounts to when revenue stays flat even as you bulk up the company.

The grunts - the devs, testers and other peons who slave in countless death marches - will get fired, while the execs will get millions in severance packages.

It's most likely that neither the "grunts" *nor* the execs are to blame here. Usually in a situation like this, it's middle management that's to blame - the project managers, the producers, the creative directors, etc. These are the guys responsible for the nitty-gritty decisions. These are the guys that the execs have delegated to.

Yes, it's sad that the grunts will get laid off. But that's life, and they should expect nothing less if their company isn't doing well. If they're talented, they'll quickly get hired somewhere else. If they're not talented, then maybe they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Real innovation allows for project failures.

[Richard Steiner]

If you look at the companies and facilities which have been centers of innovation over the years (Xerox PARC, 3M, IBM, etc.), you'll notice that most of those allow folks to work on something at least part of the time which has no present or foreseen future market value at all.

The idea is that something good *might* come from these apparently far-fetched projects.

This is also true for games and game-related concepts. If teams are expected to be profitable, essentially letting sales be the main determinant for their current actions, then most of the software that they will come up with will be little more than a derivative of existing stuff.

This is why we have game sequels ad Nauseum today. :-(

I think they're shooting themselves in the foot.