Electronic Arts Suffers $45 Million Loss

[Pinkamena]

Yes, yeeees. Burn!

 

[Coffeejack]

$45 million loss, you say? Dance, then, wherever you may be!

 

[sailor_960]

Damn. It ain't gonna change a thing, but damn that's a lot of money.

 

[harryhenry]

Yes! Thousands of people have their jobs at risk! That's what they get for working for a company I don't like! They deserve to lose their job!

Am I doing this right?

Finally! someone who i can agree with!

 

[Sexy Devil]

*deleted*

 

[immortalfrieza]

On the other hand: I feel bad for all the innocent people who might lose their job.

On one hand it's a bit hard for me to really stand up and applaud and cheer when a company like EA starts to lose a lot of money, simply because it means that people who had nothing to do with the financial decisions will likely get laid off or their benefits/pay cut so they can continue to prop up the farce of the company.

Wow! this post is so ignorant it almost hurts. There is probably a couple thousand of free opening across the spectrum for all those employees to go to right, I mean especially after all those other studio closings this year. But hay lets just forget that those are people with you know lives and family's because you know the only thing that matters is that I get to play more games.

Yes! Thousands of people have their jobs at risk! That's what they get for working for a company I don't like! They deserve to lose their job!

Am I doing this right?

I hate how people rush to be gleeful at the sight of EA floundering. Many people, including a close member of my family, make their livings working for EA. They feed their families and pay the mortgage working for EA. They get up every morning and put in a full day's hard work working for EA.

Don't like EA's games? Don't buy them, no-one has a gun to your head forcing you. Just be mature enough to have cast the vote with your wallet, and refrain from smugly declaring 'wel its cos their dicks arnt they LOL'.

You make the strike against EA by not buying the games, and maybe that will cause a change in their practices. Gloating over what will probably result in a load of layoffs? That's just cold.

Quite frankly, if people losing their jobs is what the result will be of companies like EA going under, then those are unavoidable and necessary sacrifices, and the video game industry and it's customers will both better off for it. Besides, people are making a big deal over nothing anyway. Why? It's because:

1. Whatever company it is will be bought out and the buyer hire most of the remaining employees along with it.

2. They can get a job in one of the other companies.

3. They can start up their own companies. There are plenty of people that have been and will continue to be laid off or just leave that do this.

4. They can get work in other industries. One of the great things about getting degrees in the various areas of game development and publishing is that pretty much all of the degrees needed for it are applicable to many other industries beside the video game industry.

5. With companies like EA that buy up developers only to run them into the ground and will most likely do so more in the future, it will ultimately SAVE jobs in the long run to have companies like EA die.

6. The fact that people will lose their jobs is a PATHETIC reason to allow dying companies to stay afloat. Survival of the fittest is as much a law of business as it is of the jungle. If a company can't live in the face of it's competition, it doesn't deserve to.

 

[survivor686]

I must admit I find it hard to conjure up any sympathy. With their cutting of content for DLC, origin-ware and lackluster customer support, I now relegate most EA products to discount sales.

 

[LGC Pominator]

I haven't bought an EA game since battlefield 3, and not a day has gone by where that decision has been made to be one I regret

I seriously hope they pull their heads out of their collective backsides soon, otherwise some skilled developers will be on the chopping block

To be honest, as time goes on, I wouldn't be surprised if Zenimax didn't make a bid for some of the underperforming studios in EA's line, what with their current stable of games mainly being focused around the Elder Scrolls series and "franchisising dishonoured", it wouldn't hurt their publishing arm to grab some of the lost IP's of the last generation, because clearly EA doesn't know what the hell it is doing with them.

Hell when Dead Space 3 fails to meet it's minimum 5 million mark, which I can almost guarantee at this stage, they aren't even marketing it all that much, in fact all the marketing I HAVE seen has been this constant barrage of "hey look! HERES ANOTHER WAY WE WILL TRY SCREW YOU OUT OF YOUR CASH!" Which, as far as consumer goodwill is concerned, they aren't going in a good direction.
In the meantime their attempts to draw in the CoD crowd by turning the combat into Gears of Lost Uncharted Planet simply won't succeed for one reason: The CoD crowd is already playing CoD, they don't know that dead space exists, maybe one or two of them have "that nerd friend" who has all the games and they play it at theirs, but they are never going to buy it, because they didn't buy their 360 for that, they bought it for Fifa, CoD and maybe Battlefield, thats about it.

 

[EeviStev]

... that its Origin platform now has more than 39 million registered users ...

This is also a load of shit number... I have an Origin account. Its because I did some creation for my FIFA 11 ultimate team. I always love when these companies make these statements. This is just like my Google+ account existing since I have a gmail account.

The only reason I have an Origin account is that time I bought Heroes of Might and Magic 6 and had to create an O-ccount to register the game. So I was allowed to play the game. Which I already bought. On Steam.

 

[NortherWolf]

EA, its not the economy, its cause you're the most bloated, wasteful, unabashedly evil publisher on the planet.

And as far as the people crying "Think of the people who will lose their jobs." I'm sorry, but when a company does unethical, anti-consumer, exploitative, sleazy shit and puts out sub-par product we can't just let it slide because jobs are on the line.

I wonder how many "Think of the employees" people are the same people that want to shut down the fire-arm industry and want wal-mart gone. Ya know those places employ people to, right? Way, WAY more people than EA.

Not to mention the trend on Escapist to wish places like Game and Gamestop out of business.
"Think of those poor workers!" seem to translate into "Don't touch my favourite company!"

 

[spartandude]

if EA does go under then yes it is a shame that innocent people lose their jobs, it really is. however it isnt my duty to support these people's jobs. i dont have to buy EA products and if i spend money on their competitors because they offer me a better deal then so be it, EA wont get any of my money.

 

[Lilani]

To those who are pitying the others who will go down with EA if they happen to go down: No, they don't deserve to lose their jobs, as much as the people who worked at ENRON and weren't involved in the scandal didn't deserve it, or all of the people who work in the housing market lost work because of the housing bubble they did nothing to cause. But that's just what happens when something bad comes from the inside of a company or group. When big companies go bad, that is the side effect. We are rid of something bad in the economy, but there is also some good that ends up displaced. And there's really no way to avoid that.

 

[hentropy]

On one hand it's a bit hard for me to really stand up and applaud and cheer when a company like EA starts to lose a lot of money, simply because it means that people who had nothing to do with the financial decisions will likely get laid off or their benefits/pay cut so they can continue to prop up the farce of the company.

Quite frankly, if people losing their jobs is what the result will be of companies like EA going under, then those are unavoidable and necessary sacrifices, and the video game industry and it's customers will both better off for it. Besides, people are making a big deal over nothing anyway. Why? It's because:

1. Whatever company it is will be bought out and the buyer hire most of the remaining employees along with it.

2. They can get a job in one of the other companies.

3. They can start up their own companies. There are plenty of people that have been and will continue to be laid off or just leave that do this.

4. They can get work in other industries. One of the great things about getting degrees in the various areas of game development and publishing is that pretty much all of the degrees needed for it are applicable to many other industries beside the video game industry.

5. With companies like EA that buy up developers only to run them into the ground and will most likely do so more in the future, it will ultimately SAVE jobs in the long run to have companies like EA die.

6. The fact that people will lose their jobs is a PATHETIC reason to allow dying companies to stay afloat. Survival of the fittest is as much a law of business as it is of the jungle. If a company can't live in the face of it's competition, it doesn't deserve to.

I don't think anyone is saying they shouldn't fail. Only that We shouldn't sit here and pop the champagne over companies failing. I'm also not talking about the developers, they can probably get by just fine, but rather all the accountants, HR people, IT people, janitors, etc. who work for EA and might not necessarily be able to get another job right away somewhere. People who may only have a cloudy idea of why everyone hates EA, and people who will be laid off because of crap their bosses did. Not something to celebrate, even if it would make the industry as a whole a bit better. There's a difference between realizing the sad reality and ignoring it so you can celebrate the demise of the faceless "bad guy".

In the end EA won't ever "fail" in the traditional sense, they'll be bought out by some other (probably foreign a potentially even worse) company, but that will probably still mean a lot of people being laid off or pay/benefits getting cut.

What we should be hoping for is not their imminent demise, but that they change their leadership and business practices, something that might happen if they start getting into the red for an entire year instead of just a quarter.

 

[mooncalf]

We certainly are spoiled for choice in the FPS arena, our cups runneth over with AAA titles. You begin to feel a bit like Monty Python's obese Mr Creosote being pressed by an obsequious John Cleese to partake of one more slice of Modern Warfare.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

I wish they would tank if only so someone could buy them and install some competent management....

I like a lot of EA stuff and don't subscribe to the "EA is pure evil" line of thinking. My main issue is that it is run by fucking idiots.

I agree with this. EA's made some of my favorite games... albeit twenty years ago.

As a consumer, I think it is my duty to make it clear to this company just what they can do to earn my hard-earned cash. Therefore I would like to propose that more digital rights management is used in EA's games. Only then can we stop, once and for all, the evil videogame pirates who are obviously responsible for the low sales of the critically-acclaimed groundbreaking masterpiece "Warfighter". It is also my considered opinion that this game absolutely does not have the stupidest name of any gaming-related product since the "Weeeeee".

 

[Kaymish]

[snip]
and that its Origin platform now has more than 39 million registered users and distribution deals with 86 independent developers.

yes it might have 39 million registered users but what fraction of them are active? and what are the sales like? i am betting there are few users active and fewer that have bought games off origin i know i can get them retail for cheaper
all the users in the world are not going to help you if they do not buy anything or worse only DL/play your free games

however that said i doubt the clowns running EA are ever going to figure out where they are going wrong fast enough to fix this

 

[Vivi22]

... that its Origin platform now has more than 39 million registered users ...

This is also a load of shit number... I have an Origin account. Its because I did some creation for my FIFA 11 ultimate team. I always love when these companies make these statements. This is just like my Google+ account existing since I have a gmail account.

Actually, their inflating those numbers is even worse than just that. I have an Origin account as well. Why? Because I bought Bad Company 2 back when it came out and had to create a multiplayer account to play it. Once Origin came out they rolled that into an Origin account.

An Origin account which, I might add, I've never signed into. I've never even played the game since then simply because all the TOS and other crap EA was pulling when Origin came out actively put me off of ever using it so I've literally avoided it ever since. I've actually avoided playing Bad Company 2 since they switched my account to Origin simply because I haven't wanted to have anything to do with it.

Yet I'm still one of those 39 million registered users. Yeah, no EA. Stop lying and tell us how many active users you have.

 

[Zipa]

Wrong the market is as strong as ever Blake, its just you guys are making crap games and bad business practices that people want no part in. You can blame it on the economy, the community, the media, everything but what you are doing wrong.

I wouldn't say the market is as strong as ever. 8 years back my family mortgage was close to being paid off. Now its 5 times what it was then, more than it was originally, and still increasing in what we have to repay 'cause the price of everything is going up, but wages aren't by near as much [As an example, kids school fees go up 10% a year, or, with them being 'generous' this year, 5.5%. Tell me who gets more than a 3% annual pay rise each year, which doesn't even cover school fee increases, let alone petrol, food, water, electricity and gas costs]. You can probably tell I'm not going to be spending as much money on games, and the same goes for a LOT of people. We're still not really recovered from the GFC [And if you think we are tell that to my shares >.>], and its not like there's a number of people a bit short on money or anything.
Granted this isn't the only reason for EA's decline in sales. Look at other companies and their games seem to be preferred to EA's, doubtless because of EA's recent releases which have received a rather bad rep, and the fact that they're still insisting on shitty business practices to try and nickel and dime everyone out of their money. The economy certainly has an effect - I would have bought and tried Warfighter just to see for myself how bad it was had I a bunch of spare money to spend - but its certainly not the core of the problem.

This is just like my Google+ account existing since I have a gmail account.

Pretty sure that's not how it works. I had a Gmail account for years, still had to sign up for Google+. It suggested I import all my Gmail contacts, but I didn't actually have a G+ account, despite having a Gmail account. I think Google does that side of things properly.

You automatically get a G+ account now and I think a YT account when you sign up for gmail now. Older accounts have to register individually.

 

[ResonanceSD]

TO those who work there, you are being paid by the worst thing to happen to gaming since Superman 64. Deal with it.