EA Lays Off Staff Across All Battlefield Studios Following Record-Breaking Battlefield 6 Launch (ign.com)
- Reference: 0180935578
- News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/03/09/1936236/ea-lays-off-staff-across-all-battlefield-studios-following-record-breaking-battlefield-6-launch
- Source link: https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-lays-off-staff-across-all-battlefield-studios-following-record-breaking-battlefield-6-launch
> Individuals are being informed that the layoffs are taking place as part of a "realignment" across the Battlefield studios, as the team continues its ongoing, live service support for Battlefield 6 following launch. All four studios will remain operational, though the layoffs seem to be impacting a variety of teams across multiple studios and offices.
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> IGN asked EA for comment on total number and types of roles impacted, as well as for the specific reasons for the layoffs. An EA spokesperson told IGN: "We've made select changes within our Battlefield organization to better align our teams around what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our biggest priorities, and we're continuing to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs."
[1] https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-lays-off-staff-across-all-battlefield-studios-following-record-breaking-battlefield-6-launch
They served their purpose... (Score:5, Insightful)
... so now their salaries are just a liability for the company. Remember folks: In the corporate world, employees are not people. They are "human resources". Just another column in a spreadsheet.
Corporations have no heart, no soul. And that's exactly how shareholders want them to be.
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These days the term is Human Capital and corps see just about all capital/assets as depreciating in value over time. It's not just an accounting term. It's an executive viewpoint.
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Sure, but doesn't EA like to pump out a new Battlefield game every two years like clockwork?
Or, are they going with the Fortnite model where they keep doing quarterly mission packs to an existing game over and over again?
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Bingo. I suspect thats exactly what they are doing.
They are looking at Fortnite where Epic is *still* making money hand over fist and recording 700K concurrent player counts close to a decade after release and thinking that sure seems like cheaper money.
Of couse they are missing that Fortnite is still actively worked on (Its the codebase against which the Unreal Engine is dogfooded) and 2026 fortnite is practically a whole different game than 2017 fortnite.
Also Am I the only person that finds the idea that
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> Corporations have no heart, no soul. And that's exactly how shareholders want them to be.
If you were paying the bill you'd act the same way. How many things that you don't use or need anymore do you keep paying for just to help someone maintain their income (not out of laziness and forgetting to cancel)?
I will periodically take a look at my spending and cut back on things I don't think are necessary. I do that regardless of whether I got a big bonus that year. This apparently means I have no soul in your worldview.
Crazy People (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone that has chosen to work for EA or buy any EA product since circa 2015 deserves the fucking that EA will give them.
Ut ex exemplo patet
EA and their ilk churn through their devs (Score:3)
EA is perfectly fine to burn through their developers like this - there are plenty of people who still think it's "prestigious" or desirable to work for a games company, and especially one that is "successful" enough that people would be clamouring for the opportunity. The absolute churn I see with these companies is insane.
Re:EA and their ilk churn through their devs (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just EA or even IBM that churns through people like this. I can name a half dozen companies in my city that do the same. Every year there's another crop of new recruits fresh out of college (fresh meat for the grinder!) that sign on with these companies despite their reviews on glassdoor and word of mouth. Every couple of months there's a purge and of course there are people crying that they didn't see this coming.
On some level I can't blame the companies that do this because as long as they can hoover up a bunch of warm bodies to restock their shelves, they won't change their company culture. The applicants are validating this toxic behavior.
The solution is simple: vote with your dollars and reward companies that aren't toxic. EA is a company that provides an an entertainment product which is even easier to avoid if you have shred of self control.
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> It's not just EA or even IBM that churns through people like this. I can name a half dozen companies in my city that do the same.
I've made the job hunt continuous for this very reason. You can't expect loyalty, or even be loyal, but you can expect the role to end so I personally feel it's better to be the one choosing when that happens.
It's well past time that IT was unionized, mostly because the young people coming into IT don't really know how to negotiate. It's not their fault however it drags IT down salaries for everyone else. Then there are more subtle things like ergonomics and people over-working and importing that fucki
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> EA is perfectly fine to burn through their developers like this - there are plenty of people who still think it's "prestigious" or desirable to work for a games company, and especially one that is "successful" enough that people would be clamouring for the opportunity. The absolute churn I see with these companies is insane.
This. The game industry has been like this for decades. It made a bit more sense when games were released on a CD and then not really updated compared to live service games, but still it was more akin to making a movie than a continually revving software product.
One thing that movie production employees got right in retrospect that games devs (and maybe other devs) haven't is that Hollywood is unionized. I'm still not quite pro union / guild... but that my be me just not wanting to admit the truth.
Afte
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The textile mills in New England worked much the same. Hire some immigrants fresh off the ships and burn them out.
Just be glad the company isn't locking the fire doors to keep you in. You do check, right?
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire
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I'm not sure people see EA as entirely "desirable" to work for. Just that its an AAA and for folks that want AAA on their resume then ....... well its better than hammering away on a Godot platformer in the bedroom while eating catfood and fighting off landlord eviction attempts..
I suspect most game devs if you ask them where they'd like to work would tell you Larian, Rockstar, MAYBE Ubisoft f they are interested in godlike project management (Ubisoft pump out a whole new Assasins creed every year.) somethi
At the end of every project (Score:4, Insightful)
The best devs move on of their own accord.
Its the less desirable employees who have to be moved on.
Anyone who works for a game company needs an attitude adjustment if they think they're going to be there for more than one project.
BF6 retention is terrible (Score:2)
CCU on steam is down like 90% since launch. For whatever reason, the players are not sticking even though by and large players seem to appreciate the game.
really need an union! and OT pay for crunch time w (Score:3)
really need an union! and OT pay for crunch time why work you ass off at 80-100 hour weeks just to get canned when the project is over!
Who knew AAA game dev was now a gig economy? (Score:2)
I'm not sure what incentive game developers and artists will have to really put in their best work on these huge titles anymore. All the big players, EA, MS, Blizzard, etc, just wait until they ship a game and then lay off a huge portion of the dev team, regardless of the game's success. Why work hard if you know the quality of the product doesn't affect your future job stability?
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Sounds like Hollywood. Gather up the staff, make the movie, and then disperse.
in hollywood they are union / in Guilds and do pro (Score:2)
in hollywood they are union / in Guilds and sometime do project work. Now can gameing be better if an big % of say an AAA was an project with union rules?
Biggest Launch? (Score:2)
Biggest launch doesn't mean much. That doesn't say they sold the most. Could mean they spent the most marketing on it. What we do know is that nearly instantly they were HEAVILY discounting it. That's not a sign of strong sales. This is the fastest any Battlefield game as ever gone on sale.
Lame AF (Score:3)
I recently bought the game and played a little. My last battlefield was over a decade ago, battlefield1 and 2042 sucked in my honest opinion, I can't support all of the WW1 and WW2 remakes, and the premise of 2042 jumped the shark long before the game was released. That said, I have about 20 hours into BF6 and the level of shilling for battle pass and to sell skins makes me sick. What ever happened to paying $80 dollars for a game being enough to provide the consumer with all the things and not try to nickel and dime them. This is not normal and we shouldn't accept it...
Great job everyone! (Score:2)
You're fired.
bf6 all charms (Score:1)
no game. Yes they probably should get rid of the people who make all the crap no one wants in their games. It just feels so rewarding to get a sticker with a graphic show on my screen, someone actually made that, that got into the game. All these game companies need to rethink, because the games AI will be making, will be better, because its not what some shit head upstairs can calc roi on it will be what you want.
Makes sense... (Score:2)
It's harder to create a product than it is to maintain it.
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> It's harder to create a product than it is to maintain it.
It's harder to justify the additional 10% bump in stock price without dumping a ton of internal cost.
It's even harder when you have to do that shit every fiscal quarter.
Welcome to 21st Century Greed.
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When I was in college, we had hundreds of CS majors. Many wanted to go into video game development. And that was just one university; hundreds of universities were churning out gamer nerd programmers every year, making tens of thousands of potential new game devs.
Labor is a market. If you're part of the oversupply, you'll be taken advantage of. I'm not making a moral judgement about it, it's simply the way of things.
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So don't expect any bug fixes...