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submitted 2 months ago by Carighan@piefed.world to c/games@lemmy.world

Always fun to develop a record-selling game. You lose your job as a thanks! 🤮

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[-] RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip 26 points 2 months ago

Did your game do poorly? Straight to unemployment.

Did your game do very well? Believe it or not, straight to unemployment.

[-] Jackhammer_Joe@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

Your game did so-so? Also: straight to unemployment.

[-] GaiusBaltar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Our C-Suite bonuses are high... because of unemployment.

[-] afromustache@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Under-sell over-sell

[-] afromustache@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I've basically just stopped buying AAA games at this point. They are invariably worse quality than indie and AA titles and filled with microtransactions and other predatory bullshit, and the icing on the shit-filled cake is that by buying them you are legitimizing this kind of behavior.

There are just so many good games to play across so many genres that there is no reason whatsoever to buy them, and buying indie games you can feel good about supporting a small dev.

It is especially upsetting to see this news because I remember playing a crapton of Bad Company 2 with my friends in school. All of us got BF3 on launch and played it to death. 4 came out and I know people really liked it but to me it wad just an overly streamlined 3, 1 was cool but a bit too arcadey for me, 5 had no soul and 2042 was clearly just a joke. I hate seeing franchises I loved die through corpo bullshit but there's plenty of other, better, tastier fish in the sea.

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

Depends what you define as “AAA”

Baldurs Gate 3, for instance, has no nonsense, and every word out of the director's mouth is “we made this decision because it’s what our developers wanted.” But while the dev team is “AAA” large, Larian doesn’t really fit the mould of Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar, Blizzard or whatever.

I think we need a new designation for what are basically megacorp operations.

[-] afromustache@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I mean honestly aaa at this point to me kinda has an ironic meaning. It just refers to big budget shit titles that have tons of marketing behind them. I would never refer to an actually good game as aaa because the vast majority of aaa studios make bad, buggy, unfinished, and overpriced.

[-] No1@aussie.zone 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

"The game is finished. You are of no use to us any longer, peasants. Begone!"

[-] Brewchin@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Classic modern tech company formula. If any records or targets are broken, mass layoffs must happen.

I think MBA schools have forgotten the golden rule of economics: you get what you incentivise for. Guaranteed unemployment isn't it.

[-] cogman@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

This is, unfortunately, just typical of the gaming industry in general.

Effectively for all these game studios, everyone is on contract for the duration of the project. Once that finishes, they fire everyone and let them compete for the next contract. Because the game industry is highly competitive and having "EA" on your resume is impressive, they can get away with this behavior as they can always find more bodies to work. It allows EA to continually pay shit and have a bad working environment because people yern to do something creative.

[-] Brewchin@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

You make good points about them being contractors and the CV aspects. I'd not thought of that.

But it's not just in gaming. It's all of the tech space, or at least those run by American companies, and applies to full time staff. The last decade or so of my tech career is a mirror image of it.

Though it's hard to tell if it's layoff FOMO, AI changes, or AI being used as an excuse. Something's changed in recent years.

[-] realitaetsverlust@piefed.zip 1 points 2 months ago

I don't think contractors count towards "layoffs".

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

You know, a few months before I was laid off at my previous job, they did announce record-breaking year-over-year profits right after I built them a new site, and then they laid me off a few months after that.

Then again, I've been at my current company for a few years now, and they have been announcing record-breaking year-over-year profits over the past 3 years and it's been fine, so I guess it depends lol

[-] Brewchin@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

It probably does, and I doubt the difference is anything to do with you. (Beyond not sticking your head above the KPI parapet, etc).

The last place I was laid off from was notorious for a LIFO/stack policy whenever heads needed to roll. The one before that looked purely at the highest earners. And the one before that did whatever the nice vulture capitalists told them to do... or else.

None of them looked at how much you made (or retained) for the company, customer and colleague satisfaction, impact on teams or projects. Just "thought leaders" looking at spreadsheets while telling everyone that they know what they're doing. And for the IC it's indistinguishable from Russian roulette.

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah, my manager replaced the team with his friends that he hired. It was just a case of nepotism, nothing I did wrong.

At least I have a 30% higher paying job now than I did back then, and this one actually has bonuses that they pay out too.

[-] reksas@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

people just shouldnt work for ea at all. Even if you do good job you still lose your job.

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 2 months ago

"So long and thanks for all the crunch!" - Average EA executive

[-] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago

I've had a personal boycott against EA (and Ubisoft, Activision, etc) for over 10 years now and time and time again I get reminded how good of an idea it was.

Also helped by the fact that EA titles are like $100 now and I'd much rather burn that money for a few minutes of heat than give it to the criminals at EA.

[-] glimse@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Also helped by the fact that EA games just aren't that good. Easiest boycott of my life

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

And if you absolutely must play one of their games, buy used console games, with the added bonus of keeping their kernel anti cheat shit off your PC.

[-] Darcranium@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Just punishment for making another FPS for a major corporation. Why they expect anything different at this point baffles me

[-] vane@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I want to thank you all for making this great game that put us on top last year, but as we're already 3 months in 2026, our management have no clue how to drive this success into bigger one so we went for easy profit. I think we all agree that EA is great company that deserves more this year and sometimes more is less. I wish you all best of luck in looking for next job. Let's make EA great again.

[-] altphoto@lemmy.today 3 points 2 months ago

They chew you, then spit you out. We're basically gum.

[-] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Always enshittification. Always this is a symptom of late-stage capitalism. The fucks in suits constantly seeking profit.

Anyone who's other than a suit will have to consider learning the trades as a backup, instead of having to chase the next open tech job.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone -1 points 2 months ago

late stage capitalism

You can just say capitalism

[-] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

That's how they keep wages low. After the crunch, they fire anyone they might have to give a raise to. Next game they hire a bunch of new grunts for next to nothing and repeat.

[-] socsa@piefed.social 2 points 2 months ago

I'm sure they just understand the problems with glorifying warfare in video games marketed to children.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Doesn't EA do this after pretty much every major release? Bring in a ton of part-timers and consultants in the rush to release. Go live with a buggy half-assed product. Fire most of the team to save costs. Then coast on marketing and DLC for a few years, before you kick off the next dev cycle and do it again?

[-] SalamenceFury@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago

Turns out when you make a 100 million active player target it doesn't get hit and they use it as an excuse to fire you. GG.

[-] Zacpod@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Anyone who gives EA money is an absolute moron and is part of the problem.

[-] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

I think at this stage it's children who are easily impressionable and using their parent's credit cards to buy EA games, is the company's customer base. EA hasn't produced a good game for a long awhile. Battlefield games had been the only games I played much before 2020, but since then I stopped caring about EA.

[-] P1k1e@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Nah, plenty of grown ass adults who don't care, don't notice or think this counts as progress

[-] dhcmrlchtdj__@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Time for everyone else at EA to unionize

[-] Bieren@lemmy.today 1 points 2 months ago

Battlefield and COD are just rinse and repeat at this point. They will get AI to change the skin and slightly alter the maps from here on out. Sports games to follow.

[-] QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 months ago

"EA is EA, even if you fried it with butter."

[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

These layoffs come just months after the unexpected death of Battlefield franchise head Vince Zampella in a car accident. They also come as EA is preparing to be acquired by an investor group composed of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners for approximately $55 billion.

[-] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

~~You would think IGN would have budget for basic fact checking but this article was probably written by AI~~ Edit: this was a bad call by me, it turns out everything appears to be accurate. I just was making assumptions based off of outdated information

[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
[-] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

You would think that I would do some basic fact checking…

I missed when Vince Z went from Respawn to Dice LA. I retract my claims of AI

[-] jballs@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 months ago

Battlefield 6 was the best-selling game in the U.S. in 2025.

Wow that's surprising to me considering how it required Secure Boot enabled, which bricked a lot of people's PCs. I installed the beta for my son and thought "there's no fucking way the average gamer is going to be able to do this."

[-] Katana314@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

They were probably relying on obnoxious Windows 11 install prompts to carry most of the fight there.

Sadly, in my case it just moved me to Linux…

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 months ago

bricked a lot of people's PCs

Did the definition of "brick" in this context change recently, or did secure boot literally destroy people's hardware?

[-] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

An average teen gamer would move their entire family on Linux if it meant they get their digital crack.

[-] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 months ago

Ea Nasir wouldn't do that!

[-] pycorax@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Are games the new copper?

this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
49 points (100.0% liked)

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