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submitted 4 days 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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[-] TwilitSky@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

We produced a record-profit making game and we couldn't have done it with out you. Now get out and pick up your severance check on the way.

[-] leoj@piefed.zip 8 points 2 days ago

I wish we could band together and create a company not with the motive of profit for shareholders, but with the motive of wages for employees.

What if the goal was to hire and pay as many people as much as possible, all while creating something really neat.

How do we start this?

[-] Liketearsinrain@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 days ago

They are called co-ops. Capitalism is fundamentally broken broken, so your idea will not work at larger scales under the current system

[-] leoj@piefed.zip 2 points 2 days ago

Yeh I'm aware of employee owned and co-cooperatively owned companies, but in my experience those are often used as marketing buzzwords.

I think video game development could actually be a space where this could work, but with the saturation of indie and low effort games, a golden opportunity may have already passed.

[-] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Like some else already said co-ops and employee owned businesses. But they all require capital to start, maybe a bank could give you a business loan.

Maybe a government program that doesn't have a profit motive like the post office?

[-] leoj@piefed.zip 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah I think a government sponsored program could actually draw a lot of votes, I know Ms. Harris briefly touched on this with her 20k for small business start ups, but its kind of off mark from what I was proposing.

[-] RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip 243 points 4 days 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 93 points 4 days ago

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

[-] afromustache@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago

Under-sell over-sell

[-] Zacpod@lemmy.world 47 points 3 days ago

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

[-] Kennystillalive@feddit.org 12 points 3 days ago

The problem is, they serve the audience garmer non gamer: all sports simulation like: FIFA, NBA, NHL, Madden etc are with them and then games like Battlefield. I know a bunch of people that play these games, but don't consider themselves as gamers and give 0 fucks how the industrie is doimg.

[-] 87Six@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

The normies are always the issue

[-] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days 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 11 points 3 days ago

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

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[-] Brewchin@lemmy.world 131 points 4 days 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 68 points 4 days 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 39 points 4 days 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.

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[-] afromustache@lemmy.world 74 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days 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.

[-] Truscape 13 points 4 days ago

Most of the devs from the Bad Company era left EA to form Embark Studios - maybe check out their games like The Finals?

[-] elvis_depresley@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 days ago

the finals is dope, arc raiders too

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[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days 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.

[-] wraithcoop@programming.dev 6 points 3 days ago

I think they self-defined themselves as AAAA because infinite growth has infected their every thought so the number of As must go up too

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Yet Another common EA L

[-] vane@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days 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.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 2 days ago

EA makes the best games when the executives get out of the way. Some developers took all of the assets that they had from Battlefront 2 (which was a gorgeous piece of crap) and made one of the best Star Wars flight sims I've ever seen.

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[-] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days 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.

[-] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca 19 points 3 days 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.

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days 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.

[-] No1@aussie.zone 48 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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

[-] reksas@sopuli.xyz 13 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

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

[-] capt_wolf@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago

EA just doing what it's always done... Got it.

That's always been their practice, use up a team until they don't think they'll get anything more from them, then shutter them. You don't go to work for EA for the job security. You work for them because you need a stepping stone...

...Or they bought your studio.

[-] QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz 57 points 4 days ago

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

[-] Darcranium@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago

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

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 4 points 2 days ago

That's not good from a player standpoint that seems to suggest that there isn't going to be any updates which is probably why they went the CCG route.

[-] BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago

EA is cancer. Don't ever buy from them - you'll get fucked

[-] dhcmrlchtdj__@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Time for everyone else at EA to unionize

[-] Blackdoomax@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

"Congratulations and fuck you !" EA probably.

[-] Soulphite@reddthat.com 29 points 4 days ago

EA execs to the employees:

Thanks for making us a lot of money, unfortunately, we need it more than you, our yacht fuel is expensive. We have to let some of you go. We hope you understand. As a token of our appreciation here's a copy of BF6 and Year 1 Season Pass! Fu.. err thank you for all your hard work and dedication.

[-] CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

That would be nice

As someone who worked in the industry, I can say you often had to FIGHT to get your name in the game credits. And you were lucky if you got a copy of whatever you made, if you did it was months later (likely long after you went and bought a copy because you wanted to play with your friends).

You certainly would not get any free digital content. Maybe a shirt or baseball hat if there were any left over from the launch party (that you weren't invited to because it's only for upper management and investors).

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[-] SalamenceFury@piefed.social 24 points 4 days 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.

[-] jballs@sh.itjust.works 26 points 4 days 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 11 points 4 days 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…

[-] VoiHyvaLuojaMitaNyt@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

What do you mean sadly? That's great news

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[-] Bieren@lemmy.today 6 points 3 days 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.

[-] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days 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.

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[-] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 12 points 4 days ago

Ea Nasir wouldn't do that!

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

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