EALA lays off 60 people

FatAssasin

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this:

Gamespot Article
1up Article

It's interesting that he says that they're doing this in preperation for working on next gen consoles. I guess they're very optimistic about how many people it takes to make a game for the next generation of hardware.

kleinluka

something from my inbox...

"Its part of increasing profitability for the studio before year end. I am not kidding. Plus, all those fired people are not going to be sucking up any bonuses that should rightly be used to drive up the stock price. I bet Wall Street will reward them by pushing the stock price even higher, they always have before.

In the past the way the company has handled this (its beginning to be review time there) is to tell the managers that they have to put 10% of their people in a ‘below average’ rating, regardless of whether they are all star performers, or just given them a number of employees that have to be fired. Spreadsheet logic does not acknowledge ‘people’, only numbers. This is the reward for unflinching loyalty, family killing hours worked and putting up with all kinds of bullshit on making the games."

ndcv

Hey, that's the Microsoft review structure too - no matter how great everybody did, a certain number of people have to get a "failing" review score. I always thought it would be better to compete against your competitors than against your own team members.

Toomas

OMFG you americans dont have any laws that protect the worker guy?
Where i live you gotta pay few months (depends how long he has worked there) salary when you fire without a reason (like the guy was drunk at work or stuff like that).

KDR_11k

We have that here too. Someone I know got fired for "stealing three Euros". Of course that was faked and they don't even have any proof so the court will probably force them to reemploy her.

Artreth

This is a horrible practice, but it doesn't surprise me that much when it happens in the US. Money rules and have a higher value per digit than an employee, statistically speaking.

Daz

Yep, thats why crunching doesn't pay kids.

Toomas: they got a package actually. They weren't simply fired without compensation.

oXYnary

See:

"The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power".

http://gallery.bcentral.com/GID5059307P3...-and-Power.aspx

Excellent book for people who are so imbedded in the system, the cant see the big picture.

tubboy

Word is, from what I've heard at work, Neil Young was most likely pressured into doing this because of pressure from EA's corp. heads. I'm told that he is actually a pretty decent guy who cares about the status of the artist and such but was forced to make this kind of decision as a last draw. This is only what I’ve heard at work. Personally, regardless of the guy doing the firing, you'd think EA (as big as they are) would expand rather than Lay off. Could it be that perhaps some ideas from there top execs are back firing?

Oh the irony.

Anyways, that's my $0.02.

Kevin Albers

Often in America companies indeed have the right to lay off/fire employees whenever they want, and employees have the right to quit whenever they want. It's a bit of a bummer...I wish their was greater job security across the board in America. Laying off employees or even closing studios is done now and then to get a short-term financial gain in the stock price.

The excuse of "preparing for next-gen development" seems rather weak...it's not like people won't be able to make normal maps just because they didn't use them on the last project they worked on, and team size certainly is going up rather than down on future projects, except for outsourcing etc.

Daz

Your 2 cents eh Tubboy? Well, I've actually worked there and know Neil Young. You're wrong.

TomDunne

Neil Young, eh? So I gather he prefers his employees to burn out rather than fade away?




Yes, I know I shouldn't have, but I couldn't help myself!

tubboy

Daz, I never said I knew him or anything. I said, I HEARD IT FROM WORK! So, there foooooo, my co workers are wrong not me...booooyaaaaa.....lol,..:P

JDinges

you're not wrong, you're just the idiot who spread the rumor. grats

Daz

You said 'Word'. Im saying it aint WORD. I was there.

Comprende?

Soul_Reaper

Why would they expand rather than lay off a load of people?

They have a monopoly on the sports market, there's no reason to expand, compete or do anything other make money now

tubboy

Chill Daz, I do believe ":P" means I am messing with ya.

Daz

Im aware what emoticons are thanks Tub.

As for the layoffs and reasons for, the fact of the matter is, EA dont operate as a global corporation, they operate financially on a per studio earnings basis.

EALA is a plush purpose built studio in a nice part of town, salaries are high, and they've arguably put out about one decent game so far and that was PC platform. So not a lot of revenue. It's a question of math. The layoffs aren't really a surprise to those close to the situation.

adam

Hopefully those 60 people who are laid off will find a company who will treat them as employee's rather than cogs.

artgoon

I've heard some terrible stuff about EA LA and some wonderful stuff on the Vancouver branch.

Daz is right.

Thegodzero

If you have people that slow down production then your going to have to fire them. I just hope the guys who were fired were not fired for not working insane hours but for being slow or less skilled. I fear its not so, as Daz said "who is the judge of whats good or not?" All they can see are hours that they were there.

pogonip

Dang daz how do you get away with Talking so much smack about the hand that feeds yah ??? Don't wanan see you walking the breadline to ..these streets are rough !!!

Is it at all possible that the people they laid off were people who were dead weight ?? Like people that did not pull there load who positions would be better filled by hard working people ?? ( We know EA wants people who will do 90 hr weeks for months on end with a smile on there face ) I can just see the meeting now

" Neil fire all those who will not do overtime so in the next months we can ramp up for Next-Gen and hire kids who will work as much as they are told to "

Daz

Pogonip: on this thread I have seriously held back on some stuff I could say! But to answer your question, it's a fun little game I play. Round here my so called 'invulnerability' is legendary. I once asked my last manager outside and they still didnt fire me. Weird.

One day my honesty will come back to bite me in the ass. I know it. Still, it'll be time to move on then anyway so no worries

I dont believe they laid off the people that didnt crunch no.
Generally the intent was to get rid of the non or lower performers, but mistakes were made for sure.

b1ll

Tbh, I dont think you can get fired for not doing mad crunch.

if all the time I didnt stay late, I would of been give a notice or a UR FIRED thingy, fuck, I would of been out of work ages ago ahah

yeah, and UBIEA
win

kleinluka

UBIEA sound so wrong in so many ways

Daz

'U BIE A' GAME?

geddit?

SouL

[ QUOTE ]
UBIEA sound so wrong in so many ways

[/ QUOTE ]

Learn to love it. You will be assimilated, soon, kleinluka!

Damn. Should keep that stuff offline.

Daz

*edit* shouldn't be laughing at a thread with this subject sorry. Private joke about the bangbus. I'll shut up now.

gauss

tubboy, please try not to put your foot in your mouth in every thread of this type, though you've managed it every one so far. please let the things other people know be said by them.

also, change your avatar, it's nearly 200kb, which is far too large for an avatar. thanks.

pogonip

Yeah my avatar has REAL ULTIMATE POWER ...and it's not even 2k !!! Animated avatars have been soooooo 90's ever since animated dancing spider man took over the web .

That rocks DAZ did you kick your managers ass ??? I guess maybe that would have got you fired . Damn next time just streight sucker punch em ! Your gonna get fired and thrown in jail for assult anyways why wait till you get outside >:-D

flaagan

on the QA side of things, life aint fun in general, but i've heard some pretty bad things about how it's run down at EALA.. a few of our leads were down there for a while just the other week, tryin to help them get their act together.

b1ll

UBEHAVE

AHAHHA WIN