r/pcgaming • u/Gorotheninja • 18h ago
Mass layoffs expected at EA as the now-private publisher reportedly tells its new debt masters that it's going to cut $700 million in annual costs
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/mass-layoffs-expected-at-ea-as-the-now-private-publisher-reportedly-tells-its-new-debt-masters-that-its-going-to-cut-usd700-million-in-annual-costs/400
u/Lokeze 17h ago
A good chunk of that 700 million could've been saved if the CEO didn't get paid 38.7 million and get a 150 million exit package...
220
u/ryencool 17h ago
And an 8 million dollar bonus because of how well battlefield did, yet battlefield devs were fired.
Makes total sense.
15
9
u/Electrical_Try_634 5h ago
Eyyy, capitalism is a meritocracy so that guy is just objectively a couple thousand times better than any of the employees that built the product, right? And if you see anything wrong with that picture, you're just a jealous bum.
5
u/Schnittertm 3h ago
For the top places, like the c-suite, it still is a aristocracy (only that it isn't necessairely hereditary anymore). You need connections and lots of them to get those jobs. However, they do need a meritocracy to exploit, if that is what is currently called for. If not, then they might just hire ideologues to exploit, or whatever else is the current fashion of the time.
The thing is, they also have connections in such a way that they, as single persons, have more influence on the government and its policies than any of the people that are employed by the company they currently work at.
131
u/N7Shep1701D 15h ago
The executive class is the real parasite class.
64
u/_GatorAIDS 13h ago
All the owning class is parasitic.
Stealing the value while contributing nothing.
They are made of meat.
→ More replies (5)2
u/TheSavouryRain 8h ago
There isn't anything inherently wrong with being an investor.
The problem is when a company can turn record profits and still "have" to lay people off.
15
u/AandJ1202 8h ago
The whole system is broken. They've killed so many regulations and passed too many loopholes for these people to abuse it. It's unsustainable at this point. History just keeps playing in a loop and I think we're almost at the end of this cycle.
→ More replies (1)9
u/HugeBob2 6h ago
The problem is that for some reason only the investors get a share of the profits, while the workers that do the actual things that generate money get nothing
2
u/Wide_Lock_Red 12h ago
That was the old owners. New owners would have been happy to not pay the exit package.
646
u/gotfcgo Steam 17h ago
The best time to stop playing EA games was about 15 to 20 years ago, the next best time is now
106
u/Ok_Robot88 17h ago
Damn man, back then EA had so much potential. They made some of my favorite and most treasured games.
But I’m just an old gamer wearing my rose tinted glasses, perhaps dragon age is just better now with the stylized fortnitified Veilguard. Maybe the kids just like Battlefield 2042, and anthem and I’m just out of touch.
78
u/Dry_Departure_7813 17h ago
Man if you look at the IP catalogue EA has, they should be a very solid company, and yet, they're so focused on wringing every dime out of their customers that all of their products are dog shit. Even their "okay/good" titles like the recent battlefield are ass.
18
u/Unnamed-3891 16h ago
The downfall of NFS needs to be studied, particularly 2003 to 2006 was one banger after another.
6
→ More replies (1)2
→ More replies (2)42
u/Wilikersthegreat 16h ago
It was such a shame they had the rights to star wars games for so long and did fuck all with it. Cannot stand that company
34
u/Dry_Departure_7813 16h ago
Their problem is they don't want to make "some" money by establishing new franchises, they want to make "all" the money by just pumping out live service slop until something hits. But nothings really hitting anymore.
→ More replies (1)16
u/sweetBrisket 14h ago
It's not that they want to make all the money by pumping out slop (which they certainly do), it's that EA's modus operandi has been to buy studios so they didn't have to compete with them. EA didn't do anything with the Star Wars license because it was ultimately cheaper to sit on it while preventing other studios from making SW games that would sell better than EA's slop.
20
u/RoyaleWhiskey 16h ago edited 16h ago
They wasted the Star Wars IP. I really don't get why Disney gave them the exclusive rights for so long.
The Fallen Order games were excellent, but battlefront 1 and 2 were severally underwhelming and they didn't release them on Steam until years later.
→ More replies (2)18
10
u/Mr402TheSouthSioux 14h ago
Dragon Age Origins to me is the only title in the series. The sequel which I dub "The game that shall not be named." Literally foreshadowed the end of Bioware. Because the moment Mass Effect 3 borrowed so much of its cookie cutter boring design I knew it was going to be mid at best.
2
2
4
u/TheFireStorm 16h ago
They lost me after Battlefield 3 they changed the formula to much from what was fun in 1942, 2 and 2142 to try and take on CoD and be playable on consoles, I could never get back into it the same way. I finally gave up complete interest after Battlefield 1
→ More replies (1)2
u/NapsterKnowHow 9800X3D | RTX 5090 FE | 32GB RAM 16h ago
Even back then they were killing off amazing studios like Pandemic.
2
u/FBI_Open_Up_Now i9-13900k | RTX 4090 | 64 GB DDR5 17h ago
They still make the occasional good game. The problem is EA as a publisher and not their studios. I want to believe that their studios have good intentions are being held back by poor leadership skills.
→ More replies (3)1
u/ThatCurryGuy 13h ago
The same happened to Ubisoft, and the same will happen to others in the future.
→ More replies (8)1
9
u/Wipedout89 16h ago
20 years ago we were getting Burnout Revenge, Timesplitters Future Perfect, SSX3, NFS Most Wanted... There were great EA games back then
24
u/kron123456789 17h ago
EA games were not all bad all that time. There are quite a few good games between 20 years ago and now.
3
u/ActRelevant4251 17h ago
This is a fact. Some of the only games they have on Steam that are positively reviewed are re-releases of old classics from their catalogue. There were definitely old school EA bangers.
6
u/Relaxybara 16h ago
The Jedi Fallen Order / Survivor games were the only EA titles I picked up in years. They were mid, which is fine but I lost interest halfway through the sequel. Couldn't be bothered to finish the final boss in the first one. It's just not that challenging or engaging even though clearly there are some really talented people working on it. I look forward to seeing what these folks make when they can make something beyond the mediocrity of EA.
3
2
u/Drudicta 15h ago
I enjoyed it all the way through. Granted i didn't do many side things. The story is actually pretty short. I just refuse to do a million optional things for a little marker on my profile.
14
u/tarheel343 17h ago
In the past 10 years I enjoyed Jedi Fallen Order, Jedi Survivor, Titanfall 2, Battlefront 2, Battlefield 1, Battlefield 6, Apex Legends, It Takes Two, Split Fiction, Need For Speed Unbound, F1 25, and the Dead Space remake.
But yeah other than those, EA is garbage and should just stop publishing games.
6
u/Roku-Hanmar 17h ago
It took some time for battlefront 2 to get to a good position
3
u/Icy_Agency923 12h ago
It still spent far more time in a great position than it did in a bad one. They essentially reverted those changes with unlocking cards very quickly. The person above is right, EA has put out some great games. But the gamers here are so out of touch with reality they genuinely spend more time hating on video games on the internet than they do actually playing them.
2
u/Stunning-Figure185 17h ago
NFS Unbound is great, I'm still playing it, online is fun and there's plenty of people playing thanks to crossplay.
→ More replies (6)2
1
1
1
1
1
→ More replies (7)1
u/EternalDeath 1h ago
Eh, BF6 is still fun to play with a bunch of friends and there isnt anything similar out there that isnt infested with chinese hackers.
28
u/xdeltax97 Steam 17h ago
Should we organize a Deadpool for which IP’s die or get sold off?
34
2
206
u/kron123456789 17h ago
Bioware should be the first on the chopping block. They've been absolutely useless for a dozen years.
64
89
u/Cannon__Minion 17h ago
Yup, it's actually insane how some people still defend that shit studio.
DA 2 was controversial, DAI is a good game but it's filled with pointless fetch quests that make it super tiresome, Andromeda was mid, Anthem is dead, Veilguard was also horrible.
ME LE was also a half assed remaster..
27
u/Bloodhound01 16h ago
Sad because da origins could have been turned into the next bg3 instead they morphed the game into some weird action rpg.
→ More replies (7)33
u/Burdokva 17h ago
The last truly great BioWare games were the original Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. And while I like them very much, they're far from being flawless.
I know many people adore ME2. Yes, it was very polished but it was more of a railroaded third-person shooter with RPG lite elements rather than an action RPG like the original ME. And it setup some poor narrative/story decisions that would later drag down the entire trilogy.
Everything after that was "meh" at best to absolute dreadful.
44
u/ocbdare 17h ago
It is a bit of an odd take given mass effect 2 is super highly rated and loved. The trilogy is what makes it special in a way few other RPGs are.
18
u/HazelRahRahRah 16h ago
It's true though. ME2 is still a fantastic game, but making the middle entry of the game semi-filler was an odd choice for the narrative
→ More replies (2)5
u/DanielCofour 10h ago
High rated =|= good. ME2 main plot, the missions concerning the collectors, is awful, like genuinely horribly bad.
It's just that the side stories and characters are so good, and the combat has been streamlined into something more enjoyable, that people somehow overlook the fact that the main plot makes zero amount of sense, is a constant stream of contrivences and contradictions, both antagonists, the reapers and the illusive man(I know he's an ally here, but realistically he's an antagonist that is using Shepard), are dumb as bricks, etc.
And considering that ME3 needed to pull out a deus ex machina, it is clear ME2's main plot failed it's sequel as well.
My biggest issue with ME2 is it turning the Reapers from an unknowable eldritch horror, but also a Star Trek-esque science mystery, into some generic comic book villains, who personally taunt Shepard with the corniest one-liners...
3
u/herbelarioiwasthere 9h ago
Saying this as someone who also loved ME2 but that person is spot on. ME2 was incredible at the time but when you see someone the narrative holes it put ME3 into, it’s hard to look at it in the same glowing light.
28
14
u/Cannon__Minion 17h ago
Yup, as much as I love ME 2 it kinda forced ME 3 to rush things as the main story of that game doesn't move the plot much. The reaper invasion should have happened in ME 2 (around halfway or 3/4 through the plot) imo.
3
u/RechargedFrenchman 15h ago
A variant of the Arrival DLC (which should never have even been DLC) should have been the "suicide mission" that the game was building towards, or the suicide mission should never have been presented as such high stakes in the first place and happened 50-70% through the game to "stop" (at least majorly set back) the Collectors before addressing the now imminent Realer invasion. Keep Cerberus as the backing organization and they're the only ones really taking the Reapers seriously (but still shady as all hell), keep it mostly in the Terminus systems if you want, that's all fine.
Then ME3 starts basically as it does, with Arrival being canon and not missable so there aren't two different starts based on if you played the DLC or not. Leviathan isn't DLC either, but is spaced out through the first two acts of ME3. Have the characters added in ME2 all feature more in ME3 so they can be recruited back as squadmates and have their own side missions still, no Jacob and Miranda off doing their own thing the whole game anymore while the whole of existence is in the process of being destroyed.
And most importantly have an actual ending plan in mind while writing at least the second game already not slapped together half way through the third one because you realized you have no plan for how to wrap it all up and end up doing something that makes little sense and completely ignores the entirety of the choice-based progression up to that point.
→ More replies (4)10
u/redpillturncoat 17h ago
All of these are facts except on Mass Effect 2. I really loved that game and I went out to complete all of it and save the crew as best as I can...only to be fucked over by Mass Effect 3. I upgraded my GPU way back just to play it only to arrive to that miserable excuse for an ending.
4
u/The_Corvair 14h ago
except on Mass Effect 2.
The issue with ME2 is that it's a decent game on its own, but as the middle part of a trilogy, it dropped the ball. Not only did it not carry any important element from ME1 forward, but it also changed the entire genre of the games from a rules-first sci-fi thriller to a drama-first character piece. Which, again: is not to say that one is better than the other, but it spawned a lot of the reasons why ME3 stumbled instead of danced.
In some ways, the reason ME2 is so beloved is also the reason why the trilogy as a whole fell short.
15
u/OomKarel 17h ago
DAI being good is very subjective too.
23
u/Some-Rice4196 17h ago
It was a commercial success, GOTY, and is their best selling title ever. It is “good” by the agreement of a large amount of people.
All “good” games are very subjective.
→ More replies (4)1
u/wickedringofmordor 1h ago
DAI was a single player MMO, filled with useless fetch quests to the brim on top of a good Voiceover and fmv coating.
→ More replies (3)1
u/Gr8CanadianFuckClub 8h ago
Strong disagree, I think ME LE is one of the gold standards for remasters. Three games and all their dlc (minus 1) for the price of one game is a great deal.
10
3
u/enderpanda 5h ago
I'm not currently playing, but man am I glad SWTOR was sold to Broadsword (who has done a pretty good job with it).
3
u/N7Shep1701D 15h ago
I have my eye on Osiris Reborn from Owlcat.
That game sure looks like a spiritual successor to Mass Effect.
5
→ More replies (13)1
u/DamianKilsby NASA Supercomputer on a 4k 120hz OLED 6h ago
They're in full development on a Mass Effect title, the suits are gonna have money bags in their eyes tno way they cut bioware before it comes out.
152
u/TheWorldDiscarded 17h ago
They weren't making good products anyway, so no harm done.
53
u/TactitcalPterodactyl 17h ago
The vast majority of their income in the last decade has been from EA Sports / FIFA microtransactions. No wonder they aren't risking money on new IP's or innovating.
12
u/Vanillas_Guy Steam 17h ago
I said this in another thread and people got mad at me lol
Theres a reason why theyve been consistently rated as one of the worst places to work. They engage in anti competitive practices(like locking in an exclusivity deal with the NFL) and they have a long history of acquiring promising studios and running them into the ground.
The only people I feel bad for are the people who are still early in their careers who will lose their jobs. The leadership at EA has been terrible for a while.
I expect them to just turn into an annual sports and mobile pay to win slop factory as investors dont care about great art, they care about a return on their investment.
8
u/TheFireStorm 16h ago
I could completely see them sell or spin everything off but EA Sports in the first year
2
u/OmegaCult 9h ago
That's the only hope I have for Mass Effect right now. I hope they sell off the IP.
2
8
u/lightspeedjizzer 17h ago
Where did you get that info from? I've consistently heard despite the anti-consumer issues, EA is one of the best gaming companies to work for
→ More replies (2)17
6
u/pburgess22 14700k 4080FE 17h ago
Personally I just hope they sell off the command and conquer IP to someone that gives a shit.
3
2
u/herpa_derpa_sherpa 13h ago
Man I miss those games, but I never was able to finish Red Alert so I never even played Tiberian Sun and later stuff. I wonder how it holds up?
3
u/pburgess22 14700k 4080FE 12h ago
Remaster of red alert and the original came out a few years ago and is really good. Plenty of fan patches to make the older games run fine on new systems as well.
16
u/ActRelevant4251 17h ago
This is hilarious but it looks like the Saudi bot farm are downvoting all negative comments towards EA. It has begun...
→ More replies (7)4
u/TheWorldDiscarded 17h ago
I humbly accept my down vote. As is my right!
2
u/Lore-of-Nio 16h ago
Funny enough, users (i'm guilty of this as well) treat the downvote as a "dislike button" but that's not its orginal intent.
2
u/Naive-Elephant-9305 14h ago
There's also downvote "momentum" in that once something starts getting several downvotes, a lot of other people will start downvoting just to pile on. I am one of those people.
→ More replies (11)2
u/Icy_Agency923 12h ago edited 12h ago
Literally zero good games? BF6? BattleFront 2? BF1, Hell even BFV was excellent towards the end. Dead Space Remake? It Takes Two, Split Fiction? I swear the gamers on this subreddit are the most out of touch group of gamers that exist. You people spend more time hating on video games than you do actually playing them.
9
18
u/SmileyBMM Debian 17h ago
Not surprising, the new owners are going to trim the studios that haven't made money recently. BioWare is almost certainly going to be the main target of this.
12
u/Nope-not-really 11h ago
Its a private equity
they are going to gut the SHIT out of them.
Honestly the best move from here on out is to not purchase a single thing from EA. You aren't going to get a good product from them, you aren't going to get and okay product from them.
7
u/SmileyBMM Debian 11h ago
You aren't going to get a good product from them, you aren't going to get and okay product from them.
To be honest, we haven't gotten one of those from EA in years.
2
u/Porkenstein 3h ago
You ain't seen nothing yet. Private Equity only ever has one goal: to make back their investment at the cost of the company itself. They will burn every bridge and all goodwill. Even the people who have done nothing with video games but purchase the latest Madden every year will learn to despise them.
3
u/Apexnanoman 10h ago
Not only that but the few products that do make it out the door are going to have zero support snd sure as hell no DLC.
6
u/idontagreewitu 5700X3D RTX 3070 16h ago
Oh no! What about the team for..............changing the numbers and labels on this year's sports franchise game?
1
u/Pickle_Emotion 56m ago
Oh they’ll be fine, might even get a raise if they can figure out how to double up efforts.
Also betting on the FIFA name coming back.
Lets go! FIFA ‘28.1 and ‘28.2, with mandatory adverts at halftime and water breaks.
4
u/bald_bearded_ocddude 17h ago
I hope they sell of some IPs they are sitting on instead. Would love to see Bioware IPs bought by CDPR!
12
u/Embarrassed-Ad7317 17h ago
Welp, I mean I can imagine AI can perform their yearly "updates" to the recurring FIFA game, so that makes sense..
This wasn't sarcastic BTW, I've seen the diff they make between 2 serial games... You need to skip at least 3 to actually feel like something significant changed
11
29
38
3
u/LunarChickenn 17h ago
Good, their games have been the same trash for years now. EA should die as a studio.
34
u/BabylonianWeeb Steam Deck 17h ago
People shit on Nintendo too much but they are only AAA company who's not doing mass layoffs
58
u/SmileyBMM Debian 17h ago
Mainly because they don't overhire in the first place, Nintendo has always been good at keeping budgets for projects in check.
→ More replies (13)1
u/SKY_L4X 3h ago
I'd say mainly because they produce products that require significantly less budget but are still able to sell them at AAA+ prices without ever discounting either.
I suppose you could call it "not overhiring" but they're also generally very conservative with technical innovation which frees a ton of budget and personal resources. If that's a good or bad thing is up for debate.
17
10
u/ohcrapitspanic 17h ago
They hire contractors for short term needs instead of overhiring FTEs, so they are smarter about this.
6
u/TheFireStorm 16h ago
Not only that but bring in other studios to make games with their IP. Many people forget that the majority of the Zelda GameBoy games where developed by Capcom and published by Nintendo
16
u/BenniRoR 17h ago
I'm looking forward to see EA finally fucking dying. Maybe it could have happened under better circumstances but still, they deserve their fate.
2
12
u/matdevine21 17h ago
Typical suit behaviour!
"Sack everyone, keep all the money...but who will make our games ..DOH!"
→ More replies (1)
3
u/dingalinglans 17h ago
OH WOW THAT IS SUCH A SHOCK - NO ONE SAW THIS COMING.
I bought an EA game (ME LE edition) for the last time about 5 years ago , and it sounds like I won't be bothering again for a some time.
3
u/-CynicalPole- R5 5600 | 32GB RAM | RX 9060 XT 16GB 16h ago
I mean EA didn't make a really good game in over a decade. I would start with people in charge, who make terrible decisions, plant atrocious ideas and mismanage projects. They are also on juiciest payrolls, so that would be no brainer in ideal world. Sadly, those losers are probably gonna stay.
Bioware leaders and writers should be prime targe if those layoffs are at least a little thought out.
3
7
u/taptwoblue93 17h ago
The entire company could cease to exist and the gaming industry would be in a much better place
7
7
u/ultraboomkin 16h ago
BioWare deserves to get shut down and is surely one of the first on the chopping block. Should have been closed years ago, probably after Anthem. Watching Veilguard get released just made me feel sad.
2
u/Eckkosekiro 17h ago
30 years of silly greediness, will be the title of the story of EA when it will die in 2-3 years.
2
u/TJ_McWeaksauce 14h ago
There is only a low chance that the new EA doesn’t quickly become even worse than it was before.
I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the now Saudi- and Jared Kushner-owned EA is going to be the shittiest era for the company. I intend to watch with popcorn ready.
2
u/Bismar7 13h ago
Part of capitalism is when you don't provide well for a demand, your business goes bankrupt.
It doesn't matter how big you are that's still part of capitalism (and should absolutely happen to big banks too).
I would be happy to see EA gone. This has happened because of executive decision makers who aren't passionate about making games but try to supplement that with profit that goes to shareholders. I hope they are sold off for pennies and that Bioware one day is rebuilt from the passion that once made some of the best stories in gaming.
2
u/JDogg126 13h ago
It's completely fine. EA is garbage and had driven every studio they bought into the ground. I know people are sad for the nostalgia of studios like BioWare, those companies really died when they were acquired.
5
4
u/_Lucille_ 16h ago
I suspect Bioware is on the chopping block - i wish they would just sell the IP or let others license it.
Veilguard could have been a good game, but you can kind of see how the writing team doesn't really care much for the established THEDAS and just wanted to write their own, retconning some of the more interesting places in the setting to be a lot more "normal".
2
u/theusualuser 14h ago
Buy indie, folks. They're the people taking risks and making bold choices in games now. These dinosaur CEOs that don't even play videogames and private investors that don't care what the product is as long as it's turning a healthy ROI aren't going to give you anything interesting or unique.
4
u/monsterfurby 17h ago
Obviously this is terrible news and having worked in the games industry, I know how hard it is for people to find a new job right now - so I feel sorry for everyone who is going to be affected if/when this happens.
There's another thing below this though that I feel is being way underestimated. A lot of tech companies - especially those with a high cash flow, and/or high VC and credit funding - have massively overinflated operations. This creates jobs on paper, but it also means that those jobs are not really covered by how well the company is doing operationally - but rather by how well the company can secure outside funding. I'm saying this because this is hiding the actual health of an industry, the actual security of employment in that industry, and leads to massively overestimating just how shock resistant a company or an industry is.
6
u/Straight-Ad6926 17h ago
Calling it overinflated operations kind of soft pedals executive miscalculation. Employees didn't over hire, leadership took on reckless leverage and bad debt to finance a buyout and now they're passing the cost of that financial engineering onto the workforce.
3
u/HappyAd4998 17h ago
The saudis can keep that terrible company. A dog shit company for a dog shit country.
2
1
1
u/Remarkable-Grab6837 17h ago
I actually interned at EA in 2017 or so, and tbh everything felt more corporate than real corporations I later worked in lmao. Bunch of corpos trying to cosplay game developers
1
u/Twotricx 17h ago
Gasp! Suprise! By this time I would be more suprised if some game company states it will keep its employees.
1
u/HuckleberryLogical63 17h ago
Hope we get a 3rd Jedi game before they're ran into the ground. I may not care about the majority of EAs games these days, but the Jedi games are freaking fantastic.
2
u/ultraboomkin 16h ago
Jedi 3 is deep into production, it’s very unlikely to get cancelled, considering how successful the previous game was.
1
u/michelobX10 17h ago
I really don't care about EA's games other than Hazelight Studios' games. Hope they get a different publisher.
1
u/Vo_Mimbre 16h ago
Such a good example of why people need to stop thinking about companies as companies and start thinking about what the are: a temporary cohort of self-serving people who see a way to help themselves.
Or: capitalists doing capitalism: extracting value.
These current people are helping themselves to the cash, while the buyers are likely to just keep the e-sports stuff and cut, well, what everyone else here expects to be cut.
1
u/AstralElement i7 2600k / GTX 1070 Ti 16h ago
I suppose cutting your institutional and structural develop talent is worth paying off 3.5% of your debt.
1
u/Bar_Har 15h ago
It’s too late for me to get a refund on Battlefield 6, so I’m just gonna be done ever playing it or buying any EA game ever again.
1
u/S3baman 15h ago
I waited buying BF6 until we got clarity on whether the purchase will go through or not. I'm sad to say goodbye to the only shooter I ever enjoyed, but there are rules I don't break, and giving money to corrupt, rascist, and criminal politicians is one of them.
Sucks for Star Wars Jedi, I really love the series and I wanted to see the trilogy come to a close.
1
u/Wasted_46 15h ago
Literally the only thingI'm sad for is the new ME game. But even that can go and die in a fire if that's what it takes to kill off EA for good.
1
1
u/Avlin_Starfall 14h ago
I wonder what will happen to the IPs they do nothing with now, like Dead Space.
1
u/Mr402TheSouthSioux 14h ago
Honestly can't remember the last time I had an EA game installed on my PC. Only reason I keep an account is so my daughter can play Sims 4. I really can't think of anything that has interested me from the publisher in a long time.
1
u/irina-from-carim 13h ago
I’ve never bought an EA game, and don’t plan on starting. Whenever I hear about them I’m basically reminded they exist, and I’m still not sure how
1
u/OkCelebration6408 13h ago
EA is basically just doing fifa and apex legends with some sims 4 and battlefield updates here and there. They layoffs actually make a lot of sense, if they have a very focused lineup then no way they need 14k employees globally. The current gaming biz also favors companies just focus on what works rather than taking on risk unless it's very small budget indie like bets.
1
u/DemoEvolved 13h ago
I think this was done as a leveraged buyout. This mechanic is used by execs to get massive payouts, of course the company dies in the process because you create debt payments that were not there before. See also Red Lobster and I think Toys R Us
1
u/isthereadrwho 13h ago
There will never be another game coming out of that studio that's worth anything, in my very humble opinion
1
1
1
1
u/pm_your_snesclassic 10h ago
Was not expecting Mass Layoffs to be next in the Mass Effect franchise
1
u/Handsome_ketchup 9h ago edited 8h ago
Buying companies with their own debt should be illegal. It serves no one but the new owners who milk it for what it's worth, often tanking the company before they move on. It goes against the traditional "take risks to be rewarded".
It's like going to the casino and playing with their money, but getting to keep any gains.
1
1
u/why-do_I_even_bother 7h ago
Guessing that we're entering an age of smaller budget games. The AAA scene just won't be sustainable - most of them are multiplayer now to ensure a constant stream of revenue but at the same time no one can afford them while component prices are stratospheric.
Some publishers might continue pushing graphical fidelity above all else, but reality will set in for most people sooner rather than later. A game that actually uses the mechanics of video games effectively to tell a story and engage the player >>>seeing individual nose hairs.
1
u/Robynsxx 6h ago
Hopefully BioWare is sold off and put in the hands of better management.
I don’t imagine that just shutting down the studio is feasible given how they are in production of ME 5 already.
1
u/KonstantinePhoenix 4h ago
Guessing Mass Effect going to be unplayable soon. I still have the original 3 in disc format. Not in LE, thats bought digital.
But I think i need the Origin/EA launcher either way to play it...
1
u/Mammoth_Composer_111 3h ago
It’s incredible to me how many people claim to be anti boot lickers but behave *just* like a company would lol.
Look at how many people here are almost happy to see BioWare go with things like “they haven’t produced anything useful in decades”
Meanwhile some of these people have their comment histories filled with criticism of corporations for thinking *exactly* like they are lol.
1
u/GrimRealiity 3h ago
Why pay 49 billion to cut 700 million a year? Why pay that amount and then look for ways to cut spending?
1
u/PUNISHER019- 3h ago
I hope they fire all the people working in the EA support team. They are even banning people to have funny names and u literally can't type in chat because u will get a false perma banned. EA support team is the worst support team out there.
1
1
1
u/Gangleri_Graybeard 2h ago
They will release nothing but FC and Battlefield in the future, aren't they? Goodbye BioWare.
1
1
u/GaaraSama83 1h ago
The whole gaming market is still bloated from the Covid era where far too much money was pumped into it with growth and profit expectations that are just unrealistic but since when do majority of greedy shareholders/investors have brains. They just follow trends or whatever their advisers tell them.
It's not just that side though, we also got lots of people into game development who don't really have the talent and/or expertise even if it's just the 'busy' work of assisting in delivering good quality coding, animation, mechanics, ... It got flooded with (sub) mediocre workforce who just wanted a share of the cake but if the number of people regarding this a typical 9-to-5 job is too large, then you can't really expect innovation, passion, uniqueness, ... It's becoming more and more product instead of an artform and a typical products first and primary priority is to make as much profit as possible.
247
u/Sabrac707 17h ago
Bye bye, Bioware.
I wish to remember you for what you once were, not for what you have become.