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98 Comments
- GamerX, on 11/10/2009, -1/+37Article sponsored by Dragon Age. Oh wait...
- pook187, on 11/10/2009, -3/+35Stay classy, EA!
- oc3lot409, on 11/10/2009, -0/+30It's not a rumor, and it's not hundreds of people.
It's 1,500 employees, which is roughly 17% of their total workforce. I used to work at the main Canadian office in Burnaby, and the place is like a meat grinder. Fresh young talent in, jaded bitter employees out.
- Bloodwine, on 11/10/2009, -0/+25Since Blizzard is part of Activision now, I think they're safe from EA.
However, Blizzard isn't safe from Activision's CEO. - Seren2399, on 11/10/2009, -2/+25EA really is terrible and right before the holidays too... as if things aren't tough enough.
- villainstyle, on 11/10/2009, -6/+26electronic a$$holes hahaha
- Endeavour3d, on 11/10/2009, -4/+21EA is a disgusting company, not even a shadow of its former self.
- asgardshill, on 11/10/2009, -0/+17---> waiting for DavidNiven to show up and blame Obama for this in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ...
- larryjr88, on 11/10/2009, -1/+17EA Business Strategy
1. Buy up small, creative studios.
2. Fire everybody and run the company into the ground.
3. Produce hundreds of franchise rehashes and lackluster expansion packs for the games from these studios
4. Profit off of "non-gamer gamers" who pay $20 for 2 megabytes of furniture for The ***** Sims.
5. Profit off of taking the same sports game from last year, cross out the year to add this year, sell it as a new game. - PeanutCheeseBar, on 11/10/2009, -1/+16EA: Raping and pillaging both the gaming community and employees with impunity since 1991.
- WasabiBomb, on 11/10/2009, -0/+15In the future, all game companies will be Taco Bell.
- Bentleyk9, on 11/10/2009, -0/+11Hi, DavidNiven here and I'm a troll desperate for attention! HHUUBRURBURBURBRURBURBRBRBBRBRBR
- neomatrix724, on 11/10/2009, -0/+10Where is the ???.... WHERE IS THE ?????
- onlines, on 11/10/2009, -2/+10And now EA can return to regular scheduled programming. A momentarily blip in their history where they pushed new IPs with little to no marketing. Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, will probably never see a sequel, and Battlefield : Bad Company (A game they will pump massive amount of money into now, but had little faith before) Metal of Honor, and tried tested and true formulas will begin to become milked.
Here's to the gaming industry's future. Milking. - collution, on 11/10/2009, -4/+12What should they do, hold them and lose money? This is a corporation, get with the program.
They seem overstaffed anyway. It doesn't take a thousand people to update the Madden roster every year (/s). - WasabiBomb, on 11/10/2009, -2/+9No, all it means is that a lot of people want to work in the games industry, and will do anything to get their foot in the door. Please, you really don't have a clue about this industry, stop pretending you do.
- RawOysters, on 11/10/2009, -0/+7This is typical of the corporate environment. The corp. I work for is continually shutting down plants while at the same time buying out other businesses. There is no loyalty or consideration for employees. It is all about what you did for me this quarter. If we only hit 90% of our target, we failed. It's sad, but greed has taken them to this point. EA is going down the same road and that's sad for gaming.
- 2Bnor2B, on 11/10/2009, -0/+7To all the laid off employees. There is a growing respect in the PC gaming market for indie titles. With digital distribution you do not need a large publisher to get the product to the market. I really encourage you to band together and go off on your own.
Some of the most recent creative and imaginative games have started with indies. - sentry21, on 11/10/2009, -3/+9***** EA
- WasabiBomb, on 11/10/2009, -0/+6The company did kind of earn it. For a blast from the past, do a google search on "EASpouse".
- bigbadgoat, on 11/10/2009, -2/+7Wasabi, have you actually worked for EA recently (or ever?), because I have.
I worked for EA (EAC, 2007). It was the best work environment I ever worked in. I was well looked after, I was paid well, I was compensated more than fairly for any overtime I did, and they loved to have games, contests and events regularly to keep morale high. I was on a team of around 100, where 5-6 of them had jobs where they did nothing more than ensure everyone was happy and had every tool they needed to do their job to the best of their abilities. I loved working there, and would go back in a heartbeat.
The people that I met were incredibly talented, especially the senior people, who I assure you, don't work at EA just because they can't find a job, in fact many of them left jobs at other studios, such as Codemasters, Activision and Bungie to come work for EA. I never really heard any one with any significant complaints about working there the entire time I was there.
It seems you're pretty ignorant of the EA of today. Your complains are just plain outdated, and I assure you EA has made significant progress to ensure that previous mistakes that led to overworked, underpaid, abused employees don't happen again. From the time I spent there, I can confidently say EA treats their employees like gold. - WasabiBomb, on 11/10/2009, -0/+5The number of people who work at EA is a small fraction of the total number of game developers in the industry. Pointing at one company and saying that its actions must be acceptable because some people work there is pretty short-sighted.
I'm fairly lucky, in that I've been in the industry long enough that I can now negotiate job offers- and I can afford to turn down jobs. A lot of people in the game industry can't do the same, and that's how places like EA stay in business.
Too many people, such as yourself, think that we owe our souls to our employers because they deign to give us a paycheck. We don't. Employment is a partnership. A game company can't make a game without its employees, and employees benefit from working with the stable funding provided by the company. - oc3lot409, on 11/10/2009, -0/+5Life was just so much better at Relic and Radical.
- StealthGod, on 11/10/2009, -0/+5Yeah, I'm sure they'll drop one of their biggest franchises. /s
- WasabiBomb, on 11/10/2009, -1/+5Actually, I've told my recruiters that the one company I *won't* work for is EA. They've got a bad reputation in the game industry.
- Moralogic, on 11/10/2009, -0/+4EA took out BioWare and Maxis... Maxis was allowed to stay together as a team until they finished Sims 2. After that they were forced to split up, half of them got fired, and yeah... EA sucks.
- ironrex, on 11/10/2009, -0/+4EA is a business, and sometimes it's more profitable to buy a successful competitor just to eliminate them. Whether or not you use those employees and IP to create more product, you still win in the end. Unfortunately EA often destroys rather than creates.
- piieerrrree, on 11/10/2009, -0/+4derp derp derp derp
- Laminarcissus, on 11/10/2009, -0/+4Keep practicing bestenemy, this writing style will serve you well when you're 70 and writing crank letters about your state assemblyman to the local Pennysaver.
- damnshoes, on 11/10/2009, -0/+3EA desyroyed the C&C series.
They just need to remake C&C gold that works online and better graphics.
=P - sinurgy, on 11/10/2009, -0/+3That is why people who work for those corporations should be returning the favor. Do just enough to not get fired prematurely and that is it. Why on earth give anything more than just barely enough to a company that does the same to you?
- theNazz, on 11/10/2009, -0/+3It's hard to believe that this is the same company that put out epic titles such as M.U.L.E., Archon, Pinball Construction Set...
- Moralogic, on 11/10/2009, -0/+3Perfect ad placement. EA is a horridly immoral company, but here i an advertisement for a game made by them, just so you know not to buy it.
As if I would ever buy a game from them since the DRM fiasco of 08. It was almost as bad as the great fire of 1979 when that chipmunk ingested some fertilizer then fell in the carascene... ok I'll quit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxWbinhcNa8 - ironrex, on 11/10/2009, -1/+4I can't believed they merged, they should be so rich they buy out other companies completely. More preferably, I wish they didn't merge or buy anything. Once a video game company starts being concerned with anything but making great games, they suck. See: EA
- Auto, on 11/10/2009, -0/+2When you sleep with the devil, prepare to get boned.
- Airforcefalco, on 11/10/2009, -2/+4Hopefully this means no more "The Sims" games.
- jedinate, on 11/11/2009, -0/+2I hate when companies cry that they have no cash and then spend money on something asinine, like this. My company, withheld raises, this past year, but still had the cash to do a worldwide rebranding.
- lolerskate, on 11/10/2009, -1/+3Gamer bitched for new IP, new IP they got, and they didnt buy, yet they still buy series that have multiple sequels, just look at how many people creamed themselves at Modern Warfare 2 when it was obvious that aside from the graphic it a worst counterpart to the first one.
Dont like milked franchises? Dont buy them, and if you do buy them you aint got no rights to bitch about lack of originality in todays games.
They also cut like 40% of Mythic entertainment crew, sorry to say but they deserved it, Warhammer online could have been a great game now it nothing but a steaming pile of crap. - ELCad, on 11/10/2009, -0/+2hasn't he been dead for over 25 years?
- collution, on 11/10/2009, -0/+2"Run like a company that cares about it's workforce and consumers instead of only a company that cares about money. There is a funny thing in business. You have 2 choices. You either focus purely on money, or you focus on being a respectable company."
A company isn't limited to two choices, if it doesn't make post profits continuously, we will inevitably see the death of the company. The era of the mom and pop stores ended a while ago; it's like a star in space when we see large, respectable corporations. It sucks, but primarily the current situation.
"If you are a respectable company, like Google, you never have to advertise or anything and people will flock to you. While if you are focused on money you have to advertise and get your name out there, otherwise people will not hear about you because nobody likes you."
Google doesn't advertise? I guess you haven't seen their billboards, or their advertisements through their own ad agency on the web (hint: you're lieing). Google is respected for quality and cheapness (free), not because they "don't advertise" (because they most certainly do advertise, rather it be by billboard of service infusion). You don't know what you're talking about. Also, both of these companies are going to run different business models, Google depends on ad revenue, EA depends on retail. - stuffradio, on 11/10/2009, -0/+2Yeah, heard about this yesterday. It's local news for me :(
Fortunately I don't work there, but I know some people who have worked there and said they didn't like it. - alexmensen, on 11/10/2009, -0/+2Yeh I definately Agree
- WasabiBomb, on 11/10/2009, -0/+2@bigbadgoat- Nope, never worked for them. Quite a few of my coworkers, past and present, have- and I have yet to find anyone with much positive to say about them. It's good to hear that they aren't as evil as I've heard, though.
And you know, it bugs me that your comment is being buried. - WasabiBomb, on 11/10/2009, -0/+2Yeah, there's a reason why it's often referred to as "The Evil Alliance". A friend of mine who worked at Origin when EA bought them has a t-shirt that has the old EA logo done as Borg spaceships, and underneath it says, "You Will Be Assimilated".
- Yargh, on 11/11/2009, -0/+1Marketing is an absolute travesty.
- kinseyincanada, on 11/10/2009, -0/+1maybe if there new IPs actually sold well they would make sequels.
- collution, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
- Airforcefalco, on 11/10/2009, -0/+1One can hope.
- GauteHauk, on 11/11/2009, -0/+1The problem is that some people make start-ups with the intention of making them valuable enough to buy out or dominate the industry. If it looks like you've got a better chance of getting more money selling out, it's probably pretty hard to pass it up. It takes passion for someone to work a company up, see the ability to sell it, and pass. Maybe if people like Kotick weren't in the industry thinking of ways to take the fun out of making games, things could be just a little bit better.
It's always the people who love the product that make the best one. Now, that doesn't mean they'll make the most money or dominate the market. That's why companies like EA get this big and powerful. They really don't give a ***** about anything but the bottom line. Make the games as good as they have to be to sell. That's all. - collution, on 11/12/2009, -0/+1hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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