In a new interview with Edge Magazine, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said the key to his company's success is respecting the independence of his studios -- and in his typically-outspoken style, the exec specifically called out publisher Electronic Arts.
In his comments, Kotick claimed EA "doesn’t know how" to implement such a model and that "great people don’t really want to work there" as a result. Excerpts from the interview are already widely circulated among games publications even before the print edition with Edge in which it features arrives on newsstands tomorrow.
But Electronic Arts won't take those assertions silently: "Kotick’s relationship with studio talent is well documented in litigation," EA corporate communications VP Jeff Brown tells Gamasutra in a statement.
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.
Kotick, shut up. Just shut up.
Yea, I'm not sure why Kotick and Activision have been attacking EA so much lately, but it's starting to get on my nerves.
EA: "His company is based on three game franchises – one is a fantastic persistent world he had nothing to do with; one is in steep decline; and the third is in the process of being destroyed by Kotick’s own hubris."
Wow, that gotta hurt >_>
Lol, EA just pwned Kotick.
I remember when EA was the devil of the industry. Times certainly have changed...
Part of me wonders if Kotick thinks any publicity is good publicity and part of me thinks... naw, he's just an egotistical prick.