Electronic Arts Slashes Workforce

Dawn Kawamoto writes "Electronic Arts has been slashing jobs in recent weeks and according to Kotaku the size of the layoffs has reached as much as 10 percent of its workforce. The game maker says it's making the move to align its workforce closer to mobile and new technologies. For the console dinosaur that's trying to fight extinction by evolving into a bigger mobile player, this process has been a painful transition with a number of employees ending up in the tar pit - as well as its CEO."

Comments

EA is burning

[Moheeheeko]

Let me go get my Marshmallows. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Re:EA is burning

[gmhowell]

Let me go get my Marshmallows. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

You may not want to eat anything cooked over flaming toxic waste.

Re:EA is burning

[Arith]

Let me go get my Marshmallows. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

You may not want to eat anything cooked over flaming toxic waste.

Toxic marshmallows give superpowers

Re:EA is burning

[Moheeheeko]

Let me go get my Marshmallows. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

You may not want to eat anything cooked over flaming toxic waste.

Toxic marshmallows give superpowers

"And Meltman, with the power to...melt!"

Re:EA is burning

[hairyfeet]

I want everybody to take a good look at this because this just proves what some of us have been saying all along, which is voting with your dollars works it just isn't magic and when you are talking about a large corp with a huge bank account it takes time to work.

I mean look at how well it has worked with consumer friendly gaming companies VS consumer unfriendly gaming companies, Valve treats customers well, has doubled their profits for 7 years in a row, EA treats customers like shit? Laying off workers after the CEO bailed rather than be fired, Ubisoft who used to practically give bonuses to those in the company who could come up with a nastier way to treat customers? Removed their DRM from their current titles and from what i understand is putting out patches that remove it from previous titles, and of course Activision which is "restructuring" which is a nice way of saying "trying to stop the bleeding".

So voting with your dollars DOES WORK, it is just like any real solution isn't a magic wand one can wave to make things change instantly. As I pointed out to those that poo pooed the idea "At least i'm not paying for the right to be treated like shit" and by refusing to give those that treat me as dirt money I know I'm doing my little part in making sure they don't get rewarded for being assholes while at the same time having plenty of truly great games to play. its not like there aren't plenty of companies out there that won't be happy to treat you as a valued customer, when the stink about Diablo 3 being always online so they could nickel and dime you with money markets hit I spread the word about how Runic games was even allowing modding in Torchlight II and had a lot of folks tell me how much they loved the game. BTW if anybody doesn't have it yet? Great game and to celebrate adding Steam workshop support they gave us the Half Life headcrab as one of the pet choices. of course i had to name mine Lamar, just wouldn't be right otherwise LOL.

If a company insists on treating you like shit? Don't buy from that company and be quick to point out alternatives to anybody who is thinking of buying it. As we can plainly see here it does work, it simply takes time to hurt a huge corp like EA.

Re:EA is burning

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam is still DRM. The fact that some people who claim to oppose DRM support Steam is rather hypocritical.

Re:EA is burning

[sdreader]

There are some games sold on Steam with zero DRM and can run completely independently of the client, but the number of DRM-free games vastly pale in comparison to the total number in Steam's catalogue. Plus you won't know it's DRM free unless you buy it, or someone's found out and posted the info somewhere, since this fact isn't displayed anywhere on the game's respective Store page.

I'm only pointing this out before someone else argues that Steam does have DRM-free games. Yeah it does, but it's hard enough to know what they are and since it's not common enough, it's just easier to assume they all do. And for this reason I don't use Steam... but that makes me something of a weird outsider with PC gaming, which I'm happy with.

Re:EA is burning

[darkfeline]

I think those people really just oppose bullshit DRM. Steam DRM is very tame and reasonable, and I think most people don't really have anything against DRM as a concept that help protect game devs a little from possible lost profits; it's the bullshit DRM that get in the way of legitimate players playing the game that's the problem.

Re:EA is burning

[sunwukong]

Quick, license that IP and put it on Origin!

Re:EA is burning

[RogueyWon]

You're right, of course.

But there's another, related lesson in all of this; one that's more for businesses than consumers. The irony is, it's not a new lesson; it's one that has been well known for decades (centuries?), but which seems to have been forgotten recently in a good chunk of the gaming industry.

That lesson is: "Your brands matter. Protect their value."

I'm sure that on one level, EA understands this. In fact, I suspect a few parts of the company (mainly those who handle its cash-cow sports titles, which remain well-received and commercially successful) understand it very well. It spends a fortune on advertising. It's known to throw its weight around when major releases get lackluster reviews. But at the same time, it has worked very hard in recent years to take some of the most potent brand names in gaming and drag them through the mud. And then set fire to them. And then take a dump on the remains.

A few examples: their acquisition of Bioware looked at the time like a bit of reputation control. Their name was in the crapper, so they tried to associate themselves with the halo surrounding one of the most highly regarded developers in the business. However, with Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3, that brand very quickly ended up tarnished. Now, views will vary on EA's responsibility for that (personal view; extensive in the case of Dragon Age 2, but Mass Effect 3's failings felt mostly inflicted by people within Bioware). It wasn't just the disappointing games either; the day-1 DLC, starting from the original Dragon Age onwards (and I'd never accuse that game of being disappointing) did a lot to erode consumer good will and cement a reputation for nickel-and-diming customers who had purchased already expensive games. In fact, many of the post-launch DLC packs for EA/Bioware games have been good value, but the reputational damage is done by the day-1 stuff.

Or take Command & Conquer; one of the absolutely core franchises in the history of PC gaming. Actually, EA's history here is more complicated than it might appear. Westwood had itself done all it possibly could to tarnish this brand, with C&C2 and Red Alert 2, both of which felt years behind the curve at the point of release. EA's first move on acquiring the franchise was a bit odd and bewildering - sticking the name onto Generals - a title that clearly had little to do with Command & Conquer (which isn't to say that it was bad, just that it didn't look or feel like a C&C game). However, EA then seemed to buck its ideas up; C&C3 and Red Alert 3 were both, in their own ways, high quality titles and felt like a return to grace for the series. So what a pity that the usual EA self-destructive tendencies were allowed to take over; C&C4 was clearly rushed to release and was crippled by barely-functional always-online DRM. Since then, all we've seen has been some craptacular gestures towards the pay-to-win market.

And then there's SimCity. I won't dwell on this at length; the discussion is live across many, many gaming sites at the moment. But again, EA has taken a loved and respected franchise and smeared it in excrement. In fact, in this case, EA's reputation was already bad enough that I didn't make the mistake of buying this title.

The result of this? At one point, Bioware games - and games with the C&C or SimCity name on them - would have been guaranteed purchases for me (and, I suspect, for a lot of other people). As of now, though, I would sniff carefully around the reviews of a Bioware game, and wouldn't touch a C&C or a SimCity with a barge pole. The brand value has been substantially diminished or outright destroyed. There are other examples too; I loved the old (early 2000s) Medal of Honor games - but the first of EA's recent reboots was grim enough that I didn't touch its sequel and they've now canned the franchise again because a lot of other people clearly felt the same.

Funny thing is, EA aren't (quite) the worst in the industry at this. Dire though they are, I don't th

Re:EA is burning

[Opportunist]

There's DRM and there's DRM. Now, I won't say "good" vs. "bad" DRM, because inherently, from the consumer point of view, there's no such thing as "good" DRM. At best, there can be "acceptable" DRM. What's "acceptable" is up to the user himself, though.

Some people don't mind that selling their games is made impossible because they keep every game they buy anyway, so it does not restrict them. Others find it insufferable because their "game economy cycle" depends on them being able to sell old games to buy new ones. Some people don't mind "always on" DRM because they only play multiplayer games anyway where not having a connection to the internet means not playing the game, or because they have a stable connection and leave it up all the time, others may consider that a completely unacceptable restriction because their connection is crappy, because they don't play multiplayer and don't want their game to suddenly shut down on them for no game related reason, or simply because they don't trust the maker of the game to keep the controlling server running or offer a patch when they shut it off. That last part being maybe a problem by itself for some gamers, who enjoy pulling out an old game every now and then, while others won't worry about it since they only play the most recent installment of their favorite games and never look back.

As you see, what gamers will accept and what they will not highly depends on the individual gamer. One thing is certain: Some kind of DRM will be in the games. Even if they have to return to messing with the CD/DVD/BluRay standard and creating discs that you cannot copy for some obscure reason. The game makers of course want total control over their games, but as we can see now, that doesn't fly because the customer doesn't play along. So they'll backpedal a bit and test the waters again until they see what we'll swallow.

Steam is popular because they already kinda found that sweet spot between them wanting control and the player wanting it to "just work". Steam pretty much locks you into their service because a lot, maybe nearly all or even all, of your games are in there. Lose control of your Steam account, lose control of your library of games. Banned from one (VAC) game, banned from pretty much all of them. These are of course issues that loom over the heads of Steam users, but that seems to be something they can accept. The games work, installing them is trivial at worst (9 out of 10 games just install and you're good to go), no worries with authentication servers or similar bullshit, and that's something gamers can apparently accept.

Re:EA is burning

[Opportunist]

In other words, fire the guys you've driven into burnout, haul in new ones to burn through.

Employees aren't assets anymore. They're just means of production.

Re:EA is burning

[Kelbear]

OP is correct.

Not having Steam's "DRM" is a negative point for me when I look at a game. Thankfully Steam allows me to add non-steam games into the library for my tracking, but I still can't delete, install, and re-patch them through Steam's "DRM". They also don't come with the Steam overlay. To be clear, I /want/ all of my games to have Steam's "DRM".

If you don't understand why people like "DRM" that is providing clear benefits to them, but hate "DRM" that does nothing but provide clear detriment to them, you're just being intentionally obtuse. If you care about the risk of losing old games 10-15 years from now when Valve could theoretically lose both it's tremendous profits and the mountain of capital it has built up, and suddenly go out of business in a short period of time before releasing a rescue patch, that's fine. I don't pretend that risk doesn't exist, I've fully considered it, and I've decided I don't care about it. Steam has reduced game prices in the market so dramatically so that my purchasing concerns have more to do with time than with price. I can't play all the new games I want to play, I'm really not worried about being able to play the games I've already played.

Re:New consoles coming

[Hadlock]

The medical term for this is "circling the drain"

Not suprised

[dcmcilrath]

Welcome to capitalism, If you do nothing but make shitty games and piss people off until you get voted worst company in America two years running, you are going to suffer losses, or go bankrupt. (Personally, I keep my fingers crossed)

I do feel really bad for the people who work there though :(

Re:New consoles coming

[ColdWetDog]

If it's a medical term, then it has to have an ICD-10 code.

Closest I found was:

W17.1XXA Fall into storm drain or manhole, initial encounter -

but perhaps since EA has been screwing up for some time, we should use

Code W17.1XXD, Fall into storm drain or manhole, subsequent encounter or perhaps
Code 17.1XXS, Sequela of falling into storm hole or drain

Re:Dinosaur

[LocalH]

Several applications, most notably for the Amiga (although some of them also came out on other platforms like MS-DOS and the Apple IIgs). Their most notable series was Deluxe Paint, which was used for many of the 16-bit video games that were released on computers and consoles. They also released Deluxe Video (I have a boxed copy of DV3 still sitting here), Deluxe Music Construction Set. They also created the IFF file format specification, which saturated the Amiga platform (with sub-formats such as ILBM for images, ANIM for animation, 8SVX for sound samples, SMUS for sequenced music) and even lives on long after the Amiga's commercial death (AVI, WAV, and ANI formats on the Windows platform are basically little-endian IFF files with different chunk names, and AIFF on the Mac platform is also basically IFF with different chunk names and can either be big- or little-endian, but are most commonly found today as little-endian).

Re:Dinosaur

[owlnation]

What non-game software did EA used to make? I can't think of anything, and a quick Google doesn't turn anything up.

DRM? It turns most games into non-games, very quickly.

Re:New consoles coming

[DrVomact]

and they're slashing workforce? wtf? Is this a sudden dive in quality or is the better tech being used to reduce the number of developers/artists needed? They guy that did the meshes for Metroid Prime spent a month on optimization for the final boss alone. That's not really needed when you've got 8 gigs of ram I suppose.

Ah, young grasshoper, thou hast evidently not learned the subtleties of Scientific Management. Members of this group use a very special sort of language. That is, it's sort of a language, composed of technical terms (a.k.a. "jargon"). To quote TFA:

In recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile.

The terms in bold are technical terms that thou might mistake for English. I shall translate them into normal English for thee, so you can fully understand that they are not English:

• aligned: "to break"; ex: "Stalin aligned the party's thinking by killing every member who disagreed with him."
• elements: people, but with the connotation of "objects", or perhaps "resources"; ex: "The Battle of Black Mountain was the outcome of a long series of injustices inflicted by the coal mine bosses on their elements".
• organizational structure: A way to stupefy people until their collective intelligence is roughly equal to a cubic kilometer of crayfish, while making them believe it's the only way to get things done; alternate meaning: a sort of meat grinder; ex: Attila the Hun dominated by means of a very flat but effective organizational structure.
• priorities: Anything that the elite of the organizational structure think is important; ex: "Chickens do not understand the farmer's priorities—until it's too late.
• new technologies: vague; refers to anything considered by the heads of a power structure to be a priority; ex: "Well just keep promising them new technologies and raking in their money until they catch on".
• mobile: They have a getaway strategy.

By the way, I did not comprehend your references to "Metroid Prime" and "8 gigs". Perhaps I am missing one of your little jokes again, ha ha?

The level of ignorance in this thread

[Anonymous Coward]

Baffles me...
EA has a large number of studios all with different cultures, processes, and management. Given the size of the company there WILL be crappy work environments. Stories about these seem to get heavily magnified by the Internet lens. I've heard way worse things about other companies, but EA being one of the largest seems the easiest to hate.
Secondly, how long do you fund a money losing team/studio. At some point you have to pull the plug. If it was your money in the game you would've had it out way sooner.
Nonetheless mass layoffs are really shitty and I really feel for those devs since I'm sure some where great at their job.