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EA to lay off 5% of workforce, or about 670 employees

CLW

Member
GOOD - EA (especially its sports studios) have been producing absolute GARBAGE living off pay-to-win casino card collector modes for the past 15 years.
 

YuLY

Gold Member
I saw Shinobi's recap about what happened and last line was about Mass Effect (all good for now). I almost shit myself. Holy fuck. Please, just dont touch it, let it come out, the one thing I'm still waiting for in this fucking depressing industry. Just dont Andrew, dont.
 

Deerock71

Member
Do all these companies come together through some back-channel and decide on a day where they all can announce the bad news together?
It's called 'The Fiscal Year'. Here's yer pink slip.
Sad Tv Show GIF by SpongeBob SquarePants
 

DavJay

Member
They finally realized the madden devs don’t really work and copy and paste games every year.

Seriously though, the gaming industry is brutal.
 
I saw Shinobi's recap about what happened and last line was about Mass Effect (all good for now). I almost shit myself. Holy fuck. Please, just dont touch it, let it come out, the one thing I'm still waiting for in this fucking depressing industry. Just dont Andrew, dont.

The biggest hurdle for mass effect is dragon age. And the biggest hurdle of dragon age is being compared to the best of the best rpgs like Baldurs Gate 3. Its dead Jim.
 

Nydius

Member
I saw Shinobi's recap about what happened and last line was about Mass Effect (all good for now). I almost shit myself. Holy fuck. Please, just dont touch it, let it come out, the one thing I'm still waiting for in this fucking depressing industry. Just dont Andrew, dont.

I honestly wish they'd kill it and I say that as probably one of the biggest ME fanboys around here.

Let's be honest with ourselves. After Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem, BioWare is a shell of itself. Anyone hoping the new Mass Effect game will be anything close to the quality of the original trilogy is setting themselves up for disappointment, no matter how many OG characters they dust off for it. The vast majority of the people behind the success of the original trilogy are long gone.

I'd rather keep the fond memories of what we had with the original trilogy and Legendary Edition release than have the legacy of the entire trilogy tainted by a direct sequel that half asses it and retcons things that made the series special.
The original trilogy was lightning in a bottle.
 
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Sanepar

Member
Games future looks so bad. A bunch of generic crap gaas... teenagers purple hair games with no sense. The time to retire from this hobby is coming.
 

Ozzie666

Member
If I'm not mistaken EA is reporting profits? doing reasonably well? so are these cuts to reach executive bonuses or give share holders a slightly higher return on investment? I really don't get it, I don't understand. Company makes money, lays off people. Insomniac prints money with Spider-man, lays off people.

EA lays off people and cancels a new star wars game. Didn't Jedi Fallen order do well? Don't those Soccer loot boxes or Madden keep the entire company afloat?

Should I feel as disgusted and disheartned, or am I missing something from business 101.

Maybe Konami has the right idea.
 
If I'm not mistaken EA is reporting profits? doing reasonably well? so are these cuts to reach executive bonuses or give share holders a slightly higher return on investment? I really don't get it, I don't understand. Company makes money, lays off people. Insomniac prints money with Spider-man, lays off people.

EA lays off people and cancels a new star wars game. Didn't Jedi Fallen order do well? Don't those Soccer loot boxes or Madden keep the entire company afloat?

Should I feel as disgusted and disheartned, or am I missing something from business 101.

Maybe Konami has the right idea.
Is that profit really worth it if twice that amount goes into development for the next year?

Shareholders/Investors are looking for returns, not keep cycling their money back and more into games. Someone has to the pay the bills and it isn’t the studios not making huge returns on their games.
 

Porcile

Member
Any notable cuts coming from Japanese 3rd Party's?
No because they actually need people to make games and Japanese game industry salaries are like half of what game devs in the US and UK make not even taking exchange rates into account.
 
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NickFire

Member
I get that large companies protect profits over people’s reliances on paychecks. I get that sometimes people need to be let go for various reasons that aren‘t icky at all. But I find suggestions about cuts for the fans or audience benefit to be gross.

Anyway, I hope these companies are putting real thought into who is getting let go. If they’re just looking at numbers and letting the best people go things might get worse.
 

IAmRei

Member
Games future looks so bad. A bunch of generic crap gaas... teenagers purple hair games with no sense. The time to retire from this hobby is coming.

Nah, for me, japanese games still quite fine, if not better. And they pumped more great outputs lately.
 

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
Nah, for me, japanese games still quite fine, if not better. And they pumped more great outputs lately.

Yeah, whilst the Japanese games are still so good I'll continue to play games. They're on the ball this gen and presumably this carries on into next generation.

Beyond that maybe the kinds of traditional games Japanese devs make begin to lose popularity as current kids raised on GAAS feed into the market. If that happens then I'll retire the hobby. But we'd have like 40-50 years game library to play anyway so it would be fine.
 
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Cyberpunkd

Member
Do all these companies come together through some back-channel and decide on a day where they all can announce the bad news together?
No, but all companies use other companies as an excuse to bury the news of their own failings. It works the same with chasing trends - “look, everyone is doing it, we can’t afford to sit this one out”. Then when it fails: “hey, everyone was the same, nobody is to blame”.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
No, but all companies use other companies as an excuse to bury the news of their own failings. It works the same with chasing trends - “look, everyone is doing it, we can’t afford to sit this one out”. Then when it fails: “hey, everyone was the same, nobody is to blame”.
Yup.

Thats the old strength in numbers tactic. No different than protestors clogging streets. If one person does it, everyone notices what that person is doing. When it's a mob of 100 or 1000 it's impossible to track everyone. Blend in and there's chance you'll be ignored. The more people who join in, then it must be true.
 
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IAmRei

Member
Yeah, whilst the Japanese games are still so good I'll continue to play games. They're on the ball this gen and presumably this carries on into next generation.

Beyond that maybe the kinds of traditional games Japanese devs make begin to lose popularity as current kids raised on GAAS feed into the market. If that happens then I'll retire the hobby. But we'd have like 40-50 years game library to play anyway so it would be fine.

And also surprising and randomly fan translation appears from nowhere usually in few years. I often see what romhack done, so i can see the finished translations. Sometimes i can find gold there.
 
It is a multi company so there will be little comment on these layoffs, if it cannot be used for the console wars it seems that it does not matter.
 

Dazraell

Member
The biggest hurdle for mass effect is dragon age. And the biggest hurdle of dragon age is being compared to the best of the best rpgs like Baldurs Gate 3. Its dead Jim.
Not only BG3, but Witcher 4 is also around the corner and depending when they're aiming to release Dragon Age 4 and when CDPR will release their game, BioWare may have yet another competition at hand
 
This is all nothing new. I remember in 2002 people saying the games industry couldn't go on like it is and would crash in 2003. Layoffs have always been part of the games industry like long hours
 

CamHostage

Member
Going by the CEO's comments on licensed IPs, You have to question the future of games like Black Panther and Iron Man.

Yeah, weird, the Star Wars news officially came out immediately, but no word on the Marvel games. (Both of those Marvel games have been officially announced, whereas the Star Wars FPS was not, also Respawn has other games to pivot to while Motive and Cliffhanger Games are likely pot-committed. But it's a big question remaining to be answered...)
 
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