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The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => Hardcore Gaming 101 => Topic started by: Ratty on April 27, 2013, 08:40:48 AM

Title: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Ratty on April 27, 2013, 08:40:48 AM
http://gamepolitics.com/2013/04/25/ea-acknowledges-layoffs-statement-avoids-numbers (http://gamepolitics.com/2013/04/25/ea-acknowledges-layoffs-statement-avoids-numbers)

Quote from: Game Politics
...The company went on to say that the choices they are making are "hard" but essential to "showing players around the world why to spend their time with us."

Of course, some decent customer service, a better bedside manner, and not having a tin ear when it comes to complaints would go a lot farther than firing a bunch of employees. EA's previous statement on the series of worldwide layoffs indicated that the company was restructuring to get ready for the next console cycle, so this latest statement is kind of odd.

Yeah it's our fault for being responsible consumers and just not bending over and taking it every time the management at EA tries to screw us over. As someone in the comments to the story noted their unwillingness to release numbers on this indicates it's very large number of employees being laid off.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: X on April 27, 2013, 09:27:46 AM
I can see those very employees suing EA out of house and home. And if it does there won't be anything left of EA to salvage. You don't fire workers just to restructure a business and then blame it on the consumer. I call bulls**t and bad form on them.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: VladCT on April 27, 2013, 10:00:56 AM
It won't be long before interaction between EA and consumers degrade into a series of FU's, just like that one scene in DmC. :P
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Phoenix7786 on April 27, 2013, 10:01:15 AM
Having seen EA on its humble days on the Sega with stuff like the Strike series, General Chaos, and the Mutant League games it's a sad affair to see them have sunk this low. To me this is a lesson what happens when you become too massive in size and too attached to non-gamer shareholders who only care about the dollar rather than innovation.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: X on April 27, 2013, 10:06:15 AM
I miss the mutant league series. Why didn't they make more then just hockey and baseball? We could have gotten mutant league Basketball, Golf, Bowling, Racing, Darts lol!
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Phoenix7786 on April 27, 2013, 10:12:31 AM
From what I recall MLH sold very poorly, to the point where they lost faith in it.
Like you said though I've long dreamed of MLB. Just imagine the shenanigans. An exploding baseball that will blow up the batter (or your catcher if you're not careful!), landmine bases, and rocket-powered bats that guarantee long hits.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: VladCT on April 27, 2013, 10:15:26 AM
http://gamepolitics.com/2013/04/26/leaked-internal-memo-reveals-organizational-structure-changes-ea (http://gamepolitics.com/2013/04/26/leaked-internal-memo-reveals-organizational-structure-changes-ea)
So apparently they are indeed reorganizing.

Quote
EA is a great company, with talented and hard-working teams, a strong portfolio of products and an extremely bright future.
Yeah, keep telling yourselves that. lol
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Kale on April 27, 2013, 11:00:43 AM
I don't see anywhere they blame gamers... I wouldn't put it pass them, but I don't see it.

EA is a great company though. In many sense of the word. One, It's a great company. A large comany. Two, it's a  great company to work for...... to get a portfolio up. Three,  it's a great company with a great amount of IPs.

It's too bad it has so many problems ... like crappy CEO higher ups, and being a publicly traded one.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Mooning Freddy on April 27, 2013, 12:05:03 PM
EA sucks anyway IMHO. Have they made anything original recently? They keep milking the rotting corpse of Westwood's C&C and other games they inherited as an evil megacorporation from smaller companies now damned to obscurity.

Sounding like a little bitch here, but there you have it.

Edit: Realized they're rebooting Command & Conquer now. God help us all.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Ratty on April 27, 2013, 12:15:11 PM
I don't see anywhere they blame gamers... I wouldn't put it pass them, but I don't see it.

Quote from: Game Politics
...The company went on to say that the choices they are making are "hard" but essential to "showing players around the world why to spend their time with us."

Translation: "No really it's essential we fire all these people so gamers will realize how important it is for them to buy all our products no matter what!" The implication being that if "players around the world" had spent more of their "time" (money) "with us" (on their products) then they wouldn't have to do the layoffs. Even though according to previous statements these layoffs are due to restructuring for a new console generation and have nothing to do with the lost profits that have resulted from their terrible business decisions (like vastly over budgeting Dead Space 3) and the backlash against their anti-consumer DRM policies. It's a subtle attempt to induce a guilt trip in the consumer for the losses EA has brought on themselves.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Phoenix7786 on April 27, 2013, 01:16:38 PM
It's a subtle attempt to induce a guilt trip in the consumer for the losses EA has brought on themselves.

Yep and we're not that dumb. First person they NEED to lay off though is their PR reps. I simply cannot conceive how any PR would sanction that stupid message.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Donvermicelli on April 27, 2013, 01:16:58 PM
To be honest I hope EA burns to the ground and will serve as a warning to the rest. EA stands for all that I fear and loathe in the gaming world.
God knows I miss Westwood, not just for their awesome C&C series (forget any titles that were produced by EA) but also for other awesome RPG games like NOX. Still one of the  most compelling RPG's of it's time.

Sometimes sacrifices are needed to make people see the bigger picture, bigger picture is that gamers, even the mainstream ones, grow tired of putting their hopes up for a game and only having it result in disappointment with another milking attempt or buglittered version. Let's hope that the few remaining respectable gaming giants don't follow the same path as EA did.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: JR on April 27, 2013, 01:24:53 PM
I always hate to hear about people losing their jobs, but with the way things have been going with EA, it's been inevitable. I just hope this is a sign that gamers as a whole are less likely to put up with the way the big-name publishers have been doing business these past years, and not just a matter of sales vs. budget. It's appalling, and downright embarrassing for the gaming industry in general.

I do find it funny that EA has been voted Worst Company in America for 2 straight years on Consumerist, though. The fact that it beat out Bank of America, Comcast, etc., is just a testament to how poor of a job they're doing. They beat out a company that was fraudulently foreclosing on people's houses, for chrissakes! It just astounds me that public perception of a video game publisher can be that bad. 
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: darkmanx_429 on April 27, 2013, 02:15:06 PM
This is actually not new news unfortunately. This is happening alot in the game industry as of late. It can also be partly blamed because of the uncontrollable rate of social media apps/games growning and eating up a large part of the gaming market. Alot of people with my skill sets are being put out to pasture and because of that fact, the game companies are only taking the best of the best. It's a battlefield right now in the business The bad part of about it is I am also competing with industry vets with 15 or more years experience looking for work. It's really tough at the moment... I can definitely tell you it's not because of gamers per say, but casual gamers (the niche market) interests have changed most executives (like all companies) are still making money hand over fist.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Inccubus on April 27, 2013, 04:37:21 PM
What the hell is going on with these big name VG companies? Do they seriously think themselves so privileged as to dictate to their consumers like this. When exactly did everyone forget that their success depends on their consumers standing behind them? It's like they're all TRYING to implode themselves.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: DragonSlayr81 on April 27, 2013, 10:15:51 PM
What the hell is going on with these big name VG companies? Do they seriously think themselves so privileged as to dictate to their consumers like this. When exactly did everyone forget that their success depends on their consumers standing behind them? It's like they're all TRYING to implode themselves.
They do. The whole arrogance is astounding. And my advice to them is the same advice I've been spouting for a while, "Want people to buy your shit? QUIT SUCKING!". Seriously, a lot of these companies are pure and utter ass when it comes to taking responsiblities and learning from their mistakes.

Gotta love this:

 http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/awj5si/gametrailers-com-memo-to-ea (http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/awj5si/gametrailers-com-memo-to-ea)
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Gunlord on April 27, 2013, 10:22:25 PM
EA, you claim to love the darkness. Go then, and dwell there for eternity.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Kale on April 28, 2013, 07:25:00 AM
Translation: "No really it's essential we fire all these people so gamers will realize how important it is for them to buy all our products no matter what!" The implication being that if "players around the world" had spent more of their "time" (money) "with us" (on their products) then they wouldn't have to do the layoffs. Even though according to previous statements these layoffs are due to restructuring for a new console generation and have nothing to do with the lost profits that have resulted from their terrible business decisions (like vastly over budgeting Dead Space 3) and the backlash against their anti-consumer DRM policies. It's a subtle attempt to induce a guilt trip in the consumer for the losses EA has brought on themselves.

Ah, okay. I was reading that differently. But I see it now, wow.... that's beyond retarded. Well, it's good that I don't see it the way they do. Blame lies on the idiot who made the decisions to make such crap.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: X on April 28, 2013, 10:08:07 AM
Quote
It's a subtle attempt to induce a guilt trip in the consumer for the losses EA has brought on themselves.

There should be laws to dissuade and/or prevent anyone from causing a guilt trip to another person. That just violates their personal rights. If this is what EA's is attempting in order to turn their business around then they are f**ked. Guilt trips just piss me off.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Lelygax on May 01, 2013, 08:43:25 PM
They are trying to blackmail us with "buy our games or peoples will lost jobs" and "buy our games or we are going to rage-quit and close our company"?!

Okay then, go ahead. But trying to hear your fans and make better games is a better option.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Kale on May 02, 2013, 02:51:31 PM
You know what though, I think this is probably a good thing for most of those guys. They can go off and do their own things.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Pfil on May 07, 2013, 12:25:37 PM
They are trying to blackmail us with "buy our games or peoples will lost jobs" and "buy our games or we are going to rage-quit and close our company"?!

Okay then, go ahead. But trying to hear your fans and make better games is a better option.
Totally. That's something not only EA should learn.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: shelverton. on May 07, 2013, 02:18:19 PM

Today I read that EA has acquired the Star Wars licence from Disney or something like that. DICE and Bioware are going to hire a whole lotta people, though mostly in Sweden and... where ever Bioware is at. I don't really understand how EA is run, but it sounds pretty strange to fire people and then hire new ones. Though I guess the likes of DICE and Bioware are their own thing. I mean they are divisions of EA... Except... nah, I don't get it.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Ratty on May 07, 2013, 03:13:06 PM
Today I read that EA has acquired the Star Wars licence from Disney or something like that. DICE and Bioware are going to hire a whole lotta people, though mostly in Sweden and... where ever Bioware is at. I don't really understand how EA is run, but it sounds pretty strange to fire people and then hire new ones. Though I guess the likes of DICE and Bioware are their own thing. I mean they are divisions of EA... Except... nah, I don't get it.

Not that surprising really. EA is desperate to salvage TORtanic, Disney doesn't want to have to worry about how it's going to integrate Star Wars into it's restructuring video game licensing model for a few years. And when the inevitable tie-ins to the upcoming Star Wars movies are equally inevitably terrible, it won't make Disney look bad.
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Lelygax on May 07, 2013, 04:23:04 PM
FIFA Wars
Jedi for Speed
Golf in Naboo

I can imagine these being the next games, try to image it, you playing golf with a lightsaber! If your friend does a hole-in-one you can even say that its unfair, he's cheating and used the "force"!
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Jorge D. Fuentes on May 07, 2013, 04:30:19 PM
EA, you claim to love the darkness. Go then, and dwell there for eternity.

Well done, sir.
Well done.  +1
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Neobelmont on May 07, 2013, 09:00:45 PM
EA  ehh? Never cared  much for them  :P
Title: Re: EA fire tons of employees, blame gamers.
Post by: Sul_Yong on May 08, 2013, 07:50:00 AM
This is actually not new news unfortunately. This is happening alot in the game industry as of late. It can also be partly blamed because of the uncontrollable rate of social media apps/games growning and eating up a large part of the gaming market. Alot of people with my skill sets are being put out to pasture and because of that fact, the game companies are only taking the best of the best. It's a battlefield right now in the business The bad part of about it is I am also competing with industry vets with 15 or more years experience looking for work. It's really tough at the moment... I can definitely tell you it's not because of gamers per say, but casual gamers (the niche market) interests have changed most executives (like all companies) are still making money hand over fist.

This... saddens me cuz I know it to be true... And this probably hits more near the truth and why EA blames consumers... We aren't very numerable compared to the people that are casual...