EA Cuts Jobs From EA Canada and Blackbox

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

While job loses are always sad, I hope they give NFS back to Critereon, Blackbox's latest attempts have been average at best.

Criterion, in my opinion, should stick to Burnout, as Hot Pursuit was too arcade-y, whilst NFS The Run was a nice callback to the days of Most Wanted & Carbon.

 

[Soxafloppin]

While job loses are always sad, I hope they give NFS back to Critereon, Blackbox's latest attempts have been average at best.

Criterion, in my opinion, should stick to Burnout, as Hot Pursuit was too arcade-y, whilst NFS The Run was a nice callback to the days of Most Wanted & Carbon.

True that Hot pursuit was a pretty big departure for the series, but DEM POLICE CHASES, Dayum.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Putting out mediocrity for the past few years and suffering layoffs for it is suddenly evil when it's EA doing it?

Laying off an unknown amount of staff for unknown reasons while making a profit is. Mainly because it gets past the unfair dismissal charges.

"Despite solid performances from a number of catalogue titles and a boost in digital sales, Electronic Arts reported a loss of $322 million for Q3 2011, with total revenues topping $1.05 billion, the publisher reported to investors today."

Now, Q4 will be their biggest by far. But it's yet to be seen if it's still a gain.

And just because the overall company is making money, if you're sinking more money into a studio than you're making back, it stands to reason, you'd like to make more money if you can. You don't just keep tossing money at it.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Why does this whiff of the old EA tactic of buying out then assimilating perfectly good dev studios?

Yeah classic EA. Buy out games studio that has made quality games, try to mould them into a mini EA which doesn't fit how the developers used to work, quality of games drop because of it, EA then closes the studio claiming poor performance, when the poor performance was the result of their interference.

EA are sure going out their way to remind me why I hate them every week.

Black Box has been under EA for years now.

Edit: This reminds of having watched Moneyball recently. When things were going poorly for the A's that year, everyone was blaming Billy Beane. When things turned around, it was the calming influence of Art Howe. What? Black Box was under EA when they were making their good games. But it had nothing to do with EA. Now that things have gone poorly, "IT'S ALL EA'S FAULT ZOMG!"

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

And just because the overall company is making money, if you're sinking more money into a studio than you're making back, it stands to reason, you'd like to make more money if you can. You don't just keep tossing money at it.

So, what games has Black Box been given to make? What games will have to be moved/shelved because of this? How many people were terminated? What were the grounds for dismissal?

If you're going to make a press release, certain pertinent details should be at the front. The first being number of jobs gone.

 

[Wolfram23]

I tried NFS: The Run. I think Black Box had it coming. That game was shit.

 

[Wolfram23]

While job loses are always sad, I hope they give NFS back to Critereon, Blackbox's latest attempts have been average at best.

Criterion, in my opinion, should stick to Burnout, as Hot Pursuit was too arcade-y, whilst NFS The Run was a nice callback to the days of Most Wanted & Carbon.

True that Hot pursuit was a pretty big departure for the series, but DEM POLICE CHASES, Dayum.

I still have Hot Pursuit. 1998 racing at it's finest. Hot Pursuit 2 in 2002 was pretty good as well.

Oh, you mean the 2010 remake? I see...

Anyway, just have to say that NFS The Run was not in any way, shape, or form similar to Most Wanted or Carbon, both of which were very much based off Underground 1 and 2. The Run was a terrible, non nonsensical game. The only factor that could be considered redeeming is the actual racing, but it was repetitive and silly at best.

 

[Omnific One]

Black Box needs to make a Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2. Seriously.

 

[Frostbite3789]

So, what games has Black Box been given to make? What games will have to be moved/shelved because of this? How many people were terminated? What were the grounds for dismissal?

If you're going to make a press release, certain pertinent details should be at the front. The first being number of jobs gone.

Well, I don't have an account with GameIndustry.biz and that's the only reference this article gives.

But here's the blurb it had, "EA has confirmed it is restructuring its Vancouver operations, and cutting a small number of jobs in the process."

Even in this article there is, "As the BC studio makes this transformation, a small number of employees are being impacted while most others are being retrained, redeployed and rolling-on to new projects."