EA's market valuation is down 50 per cent since November. What's gone wrong?
EA is laying off an unknown number of individuals from across its Battlefield teams, including workers at Criterion, Dice, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studios, IGN understands.
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When logic meets EA it generates anti-matter ..... so try not to apply it in any meaningful way. Entropy is what matters in there !!
cue the apologist saying that these are mostly just contractors hired for this specific project bla bla bla
The free-to-play reboot topped 15 million players in under three weeks, but EA now claims it needs to reshape the development team.
The community warned them this would happen but nope they knew better they continued with the live service push the made the art style cartoonish and this is the result
It's always so bizarre when studios announce something super early in development under the suggestion of forming the game to player feedback, and then they push against all feedback heading straight for the cliff while everyone is warning them along the way
The Congressional Labor Caucus sent a letter to the FTC warning the debt-financed, largely PIF-owned deal could be bad news for workers
lol ya think? they're sending all that work to the cheaper labor market as soon as possible. and FYI, that labor market has exploded in the last 5-10 years. They have enough people to replace every single job. But honestly, EA is over filled with useless upper management as it is. You could probably trim 25% of their staff with no real loss in production. They aren't gamers, they're business execs. Just look at how many AI related jobs they're already starting to post. Its also hilarious that PIF owns Battle field 6
Wait,
The same congress that attacked Lina Khan when she fought the Microsoft Activision purchase.
The same congress that allowed Disney to buy 90% of Fox
The same congress that allowed Liv Golf to buy the PGA
The same congress that sits back while Paramount tries a hostile takeover despite losing the bid for Warner Bros.
NOW, the suddenly cares about doing what's "right" for works? Yeah, right.
EA now owned by The Saudis and Ubisoft to inevitably be owned by China. In hindsight, once EA and Ubisoft started having their financial woes, they should have pulled a Koei Tecmo/Bandai Namco by merging their operations into one.
Great article.
I think EA invested way too much into SWTOR. It didn't do nearly as well as they hoped it would.
So many reasons, as a games company and publisher they just become worse and worse.
They've killed off and left smaller companies to die so they could create a quick cash-in which has annoyed fans of these companies annoyed.
They milk almost every franchise they own dry.
Then when they publish a fantastic game the fans were mostly happy about they drip it apart with DLC and 'cod like' premium services(yes, battlefield 3).
Then like @allyc4t mentioned they pretty much flopped SWTOR, mostly because they tried to make it as much of a WoW clone as possible.
It really is sad, so many developer companies dead, so many franchises turned sour.. They completely deserve it.
I know why: Origin! It's the cause for everything bad!
While SWTOR was a massive project, I think investors emphasized its influence too much, although expectations were abnormally high. The outset looked great: reputative studio, established fanbase, solid IP, voice acting, and a massive budget. That first patch hindered the game more than people realize and 25% of the fanbase flocked to other titles.
The free-to-play model may actually work the same way it did for LOTRO, a game that saw profits triple in the first three months of going free-to-play. Fans will spend on aesthetics and customizable objects if given the chance, but spending $15 to play a game just doesn't hold ground anymore. World of Warcraft is only successful due to its longevity and fans knowing it's a reliable experience, but once the next expansion hits we'll see the last of pay-to-play.
EA is down because of yearly releases and too much sequels.