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Layoffs Have Started at EA Too, Reportedly

I want to believe, but it's Destin.
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That $20 billion debt that EA has due to the Saudi Arabian private equity firm buyout has to be paid somehow. So cutting a few hundred people out of the 14k positions is a start.

Who wants to bet for how long EA will be around in this capacity? I have a feeling they'll be split into different entities and then sold off. Maybe they'll keep a few key IPs and sell off the rest.

That buyout is supposed to close this month, so we'll see what will happens.
 
Laptop1991 said:
I haven't played any of their games for nearly 20 years, it's not a game company i even think about now, it's just FIFA and Madden isn't it.
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They still own Respawn, PopCap, DICE, Battlefield Studios, and Bit Reactor (Turn based strategy guys).

If it weren't for them, I also wouldn't care like the rest of you.
 
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Lith808 said:
That $20 billion debt that EA has due to the Saudi Arabian private equity firm buyout has to be paid somehow. So cutting a few hundred people out of the 14k positions is a start.

Who wants to bet for how long EA will be around in this capacity? I have a feeling they'll be split into different entities and then sold off. Maybe they'll keep a few key IPs and sell off the rest.

That buyout is supposed to close this month, so we'll see what will happens.
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This buyout makes like 0 sense in this market. The whole thing will crash and burn, IMO.
 
Their sports games make a fuck ton and carry everything it seems. If I was a random MBA who didn't care about games and just wanted to optimize the business I'd try to sell off everything except sports.
 
Anyone think we might still see a new Mass Effect? I've been holding out the tiniest sliver of hope after replaying the trilogy earlier this year.
 
Just clowns at these companies. "MS already gets negative press, so our dick move might fly a bit under the radar and save us a few bucks by reducing the work force." And then they have to pay extra for crunch and missed deadlines, hire new people and train them again on EA tools and workflow those fired people knew.
 
Hari Seldon said:
Their sports games make a fuck ton and carry everything it seems. If I was a random MBA who didn't care about games and just wanted to optimize the business I'd try to sell off everything except sports.
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Sure…

All your eggs in one basket sounds like a great bet.

And when you have a bad year or you loose a licensing deal to a competing publisher…

Then the bottom line collapses and you're fucked on the interest payments and have to wind the business down entirely.

Then you're on the run for fleecing Saudi billionaires and burning their money.

I swear you lot have no fucking idea how the games business works, if you think the textbook PE playbook has any room for success in this market.
 
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German Shocks said:
They are.
EA sees everything else in their company as waste, though.
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Shame. EA outside of their stupid ball bullshit is sitting on goldmines of good IPs that have been destroyed or are collecting dust:
  • Mass Effect
  • Dragon Age
  • Dead Space
  • Plants Vs Zombies
  • Alice
The only current franchise of theirs that isn't sports that has been consistently good imo is the Jedi series. EA can do whatever they want with their sports manure, I couldn't care less about that, but they should at least hand the other good stuff to competent developers that will actually respect their legacies and preserve what made them fun and memorable in the first place. Unfortunately, the amount of AAA Western devs I trust to be able to do so is essentially zero at this point.
 
I'm glad that Suda51 somehow managed to get Shadows of the Damned from EA, it wholly belongs to Grasshopper now :pie_relieved:.

A lot of the IPs that EA's been horrible with we now have alternatives to. Like Sim City has been completely surpassed by Cities Skylines and other city builder games, and a bunch of other devs are working hard to make alternatives to The Sims, maybe the worst-managed active EA IP of them all.

Now I think about it, probably the closest we have to a competitor to Dragon Age/Mass Effect/Kotor is the Final Fantasy remakes? But they need to get rid of the adrenaline requirement to cast spells, and give you some sort of FF12 style AI progrmaming or FF13/13-2 paradigm system for companions you're not currently controlling if they really want to compete :pie_thinking:.

We also need someone to make a competing hockey sim game and put it on PC. Tape to Tape is awesome, but it's obviously not a sim.
 
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I have just checked my EA account after a long time, i have more games on there than i thought i did, loads of Command and Conquers, 2 Crysis games, 3 Battlefields, 2 Dragon Ages, 3 Medal of Honors, a Dungeon Keeper and a Populus etc, i don't play them and have forgotten about all of them.
 
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Now would be a good time for another NBA Jam EA. Haven't bought an EA game in a decade. They should remaster NBA Streets and FPS Black. Make medium budget games again
 
winjer said:
It's so funny watching so many western studios closing, after so many years of pushing identity politics and attacking gamers. Karma really is a bitch.
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The sad thing is that it didn't have turn out this way. They chose to listen to the most extreme and loudest voices in the community and began to assume the worst about gamers, which later developed into a weird and irrational disdain for their own original audience. It didn't help that they began inviting people into their spaces who shared this sentiment and amplified it either.

If things might've went differently, the gaming community might've been here during this is unfolding crisis to catch them in their freefall instead of being apathetic.
 
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Hypereides said:
The sad thing is that it didn't have turn out this way. They chose to listen to the most extreme and loudest voices in the community and began to assume the worst about gamers, which later developed into a weird and irrational disdain for their own original audience. It didn't help that they began inviting people into their spaces who shared this sentiment and amplified it either.

If things might've went differently, the gaming community might've been here during this is unfolding crisis to catch them in their freefall instead of being apathetic.
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Even apathetic is more than they can hope for at this point.
 
German Shocks said:
They are.
EA sees everything else in their company as waste, though.
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Sims, Apex and most probably Battlefield unlikely to be viewed as a waste
Hazellight also brought them both fame and sales

crackajack said:
Just clowns at these companies. "MS already gets negative press, so our dick move might fly a bit under the radar and save us a few bucks by reducing the work force." And then they have to pay extra for crunch and missed deadlines, hire new people and train them again on EA tools and workflow those fired people knew.
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Every company get to trim fat from time to time, otherwise it grows obese and inefficient
And now is a good time for it as most outrage will be focused on MS
 
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