Jan
20

EA: A bit more on the baby…

6 Comments

Just saw this were Mark Jacobs chims in:

Folks,

Two things to keep in mind:

1) Our CEO JR has publicly stated the need to cut costs across all of EA. This statement is old news and applies all throughout EA.

2) As part of EA, all studios are expected to do their fair share to meet the expectations of our CEO.

It isn’t any more complicated than that other than to say that we have a very large studio and pretty much every person there has been and will continue to work on WAR for quite a while (meaning we haven’t started work on another game yet). When we launched, we had over 400+ people working on the game in one capacity or another so it’s not like we had a small team at launch or even a small team now.

Oh, and the whole (OMG, we’re losing 1/2 the developer (or even of the total team) thing) is total nonsense. This is one of the times I really, really wish I could comment more than I can but if you look at what JR has said in terms of *cost* cutting, that should give you a good idea about what is happening throughout EA.

Mark

I’m sure Mark is on the level, as Mythic usually is…but on the same token, I don’t think the buck exactly stops at his desk in regards to head count going forward given the economic monster EA faces.

And…there is still the issue of quality controls for Warhammer being severly hampered in the future.

D out.

Posted in Warhammer
6 Comments Posted by Darren

6 Responses to "EA: A bit more on the baby…"

  • Rog says:
    January 20, 2009 at 9:58 am

    This is part of the double-edged sword they accepted when they sold Mythic to EA. They got great distribution and a bunch of other valuable tools and assets along with the deal, but they’re also subject to EA’s cuts and worth reviews.

    I don’t think it’s something to freak out about over these particular cuts, they’re pretty standard cost-cutting faire. Tho I’m sure it pains Mark Jacobs to make them.

  • Hudson says:
    January 20, 2009 at 10:02 am

    Lord of the Rings, WoW, EQ2

    The best out there right now.

  • Exeter says:
    January 20, 2009 at 11:40 am

    I suppose that I really shouldn’t be surprised that QA workers are among the first to suffer when cutbacks are announced. Perhaps it works in most companies that are selling a product, but my intuition tells me that letting go of the folks that make sure that your product and the ongoing service isn’t broken isn’t the best solution. Afterall, in the MMO-space, what kills a game’s subscriber base quicker? Less frequent updates that are of average-to-good quality, or quicker updates that are of poor-to-average quality? My gut tells me that it’s the latter and given the most recent forecasts that suggest that EA is going to be trying to operate in an economy that’s going to be struggling until the second quarter of 2010 (and it’s likely going to get worse before it gets better) and it makes me wonder if they’ve shot themselves in the foot in the longer term. To be fair though, it seems like a situation where they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

  • TheRemedy says:
    January 20, 2009 at 12:55 pm

    Why is he “on the level?” Isn’t it his job to spin everything into a positive and tell you everything you want to hear so you’ll give him money? I’m not saying he’s a bad guy, but he’s far from being level.

  • Multiple MMORPGs? | NecroRogIcon says:
    January 21, 2009 at 6:34 am

    [...] was just playing the marketing game, it was a defensive ‘WotLK won’t hurt us’ much like his recent ‘layoffs won’t hurt us’. He was just trying to put out [...]

  • Blue Kae says:
    January 21, 2009 at 1:19 pm

    Unfortunately some jobs just don’t have the same visibility level. If a QA staffer does a great job no one ever knows. But a developer can always point to features implemented and sales people can refer to deals signed. Doesn’t make any job less important, but not all executives have the same understanding of the importance of testing.

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