Always fun to develop a record-selling game. You lose your job as a thanks! 🤮

  • TwilitSky@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    We produced a record-profit making game and we couldn’t have done it with out you. Now get out and pick up your severance check on the way.

  • leoj@piefed.zip
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    1 day ago

    I wish we could band together and create a company not with the motive of profit for shareholders, but with the motive of wages for employees.

    What if the goal was to hire and pay as many people as much as possible, all while creating something really neat.

    How do we start this?

    • Liketearsinrain@lemmy.ml
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      1 day ago

      They are called co-ops. Capitalism is fundamentally broken broken, so your idea will not work at larger scales under the current system

      • leoj@piefed.zip
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        1 day ago

        Yeh I’m aware of employee owned and co-cooperatively owned companies, but in my experience those are often used as marketing buzzwords.

        I think video game development could actually be a space where this could work, but with the saturation of indie and low effort games, a golden opportunity may have already passed.

    • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Like some else already said co-ops and employee owned businesses. But they all require capital to start, maybe a bank could give you a business loan.

      Maybe a government program that doesn’t have a profit motive like the post office?

      • leoj@piefed.zip
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        1 day ago

        Yeah I think a government sponsored program could actually draw a lot of votes, I know Ms. Harris briefly touched on this with her 20k for small business start ups, but its kind of off mark from what I was proposing.

    • REDACTED@infosec.pub
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      1 day ago

      Step 1: Wake up

      Step 2: Realize that people have never been okay with the idea of paying more, they only like to talk about making more (somehow, magically). I feel like rising prices are actually the only thing that can bring down Trump and MAGA, that’s how much people hate it

      How exactly and why do you expect people to simply pay more for games so that few people could make more money, likely in a different country? I just don’t see market working like that.

      Besides, how would you even start this without investors? Creating a product takes a long time, and you want to pay high wages while the company makes nothing?

      • leoj@piefed.zip
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        1 day ago

        Yeah those are great points to consider.

        I hope you have a good day.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    1 day ago

    That’s not good from a player standpoint that seems to suggest that there isn’t going to be any updates which is probably why they went the CCG route.

    • Kennystillalive@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      The problem is, they serve the audience garmer non gamer: all sports simulation like: FIFA, NBA, NHL, Madden etc are with them and then games like Battlefield. I know a bunch of people that play these games, but don’t consider themselves as gamers and give 0 fucks how the industrie is doimg.

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I think at this stage it’s children who are easily impressionable and using their parent’s credit cards to buy EA games, is the company’s customer base. EA hasn’t produced a good game for a long awhile. Battlefield games had been the only games I played much before 2020, but since then I stopped caring about EA.

      • P1k1e@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Nah, plenty of grown ass adults who don’t care, don’t notice or think this counts as progress

      • firepenny@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I’ll admit I still give them money as they have a few of my favorite franchises I grew up with, ME Dragon age, Dead Space.

        And these are all turning to shit, besides Dead Space. That was great.

  • Ricky Rigatoni@piefed.zip
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    3 days ago

    Did your game do poorly? Straight to unemployment.

    Did your game do very well? Believe it or not, straight to unemployment.

  • vane@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I want to thank you all for making this great game that put us on top last year, but as we’re already 3 months in 2026, our management have no clue how to drive this success into bigger one so we went for easy profit. I think we all agree that EA is great company that deserves more this year and sometimes more is less. I wish you all best of luck in looking for next job. Let’s make EA great again.

  • reksas@sopuli.xyz
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    2 days ago

    people just shouldnt work for ea at all. Even if you do good job you still lose your job.

  • Darcranium@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Just punishment for making another FPS for a major corporation. Why they expect anything different at this point baffles me

  • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    That’s how they keep wages low. After the crunch, they fire anyone they might have to give a raise to. Next game they hire a bunch of new grunts for next to nothing and repeat.

  • TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    I’ve had a personal boycott against EA (and Ubisoft, Activision, etc) for over 10 years now and time and time again I get reminded how good of an idea it was.

    Also helped by the fact that EA titles are like $100 now and I’d much rather burn that money for a few minutes of heat than give it to the criminals at EA.

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Also helped by the fact that EA games just aren’t that good. Easiest boycott of my life

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      And if you absolutely must play one of their games, buy used console games, with the added bonus of keeping their kernel anti cheat shit off your PC.

  • Brewchin@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Classic modern tech company formula. If any records or targets are broken, mass layoffs must happen.

    I think MBA schools have forgotten the golden rule of economics: you get what you incentivise for. Guaranteed unemployment isn’t it.

    • cogman@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      This is, unfortunately, just typical of the gaming industry in general.

      Effectively for all these game studios, everyone is on contract for the duration of the project. Once that finishes, they fire everyone and let them compete for the next contract. Because the game industry is highly competitive and having “EA” on your resume is impressive, they can get away with this behavior as they can always find more bodies to work. It allows EA to continually pay shit and have a bad working environment because people yern to do something creative.

      • Brewchin@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        You make good points about them being contractors and the CV aspects. I’d not thought of that.

        But it’s not just in gaming. It’s all of the tech space, or at least those run by American companies, and applies to full time staff. The last decade or so of my tech career is a mirror image of it.

        Though it’s hard to tell if it’s layoff FOMO, AI changes, or AI being used as an excuse. Something’s changed in recent years.

        • lorty@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          Interest rates are higher so companies have a higher pressure to turn big profits instead of other metrics of success.

      • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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        3 days ago

        I’ve heard the same. If you’re in the games industry and you finish shipping usually you’re laid off and then you move on to the next project. When a new battlefield comes along they’ll just start hiring everyone again whether they worked on the last one or not. It’s not really a long-term strategy but they don’t care. It’s about short-term gains.

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      You know, a few months before I was laid off at my previous job, they did announce record-breaking year-over-year profits right after I built them a new site, and then they laid me off a few months after that.

      Then again, I’ve been at my current company for a few years now, and they have been announcing record-breaking year-over-year profits over the past 3 years and it’s been fine, so I guess it depends lol

      • Brewchin@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It probably does, and I doubt the difference is anything to do with you. (Beyond not sticking your head above the KPI parapet, etc).

        The last place I was laid off from was notorious for a LIFO/stack policy whenever heads needed to roll. The one before that looked purely at the highest earners. And the one before that did whatever the nice vulture capitalists told them to do… or else.

        None of them looked at how much you made (or retained) for the company, customer and colleague satisfaction, impact on teams or projects. Just “thought leaders” looking at spreadsheets while telling everyone that they know what they’re doing. And for the IC it’s indistinguishable from Russian roulette.

        • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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          20 hours ago

          Yeah, my manager replaced the team with his friends that he hired. It was just a case of nepotism, nothing I did wrong.

          At least I have a 30% higher paying job now than I did back then, and this one actually has bonuses that they pay out too.