Boycotts don’t stop EA money. They have superbowl ad money. The market of consumers that really just don’t give a shit about this is way too large, and they will go with what’s advertised to them constantly.
I’m not saying don’t boycott them. I have for decades. I’ve preached that for decades. It doesn’t work, the AAA dev is going to still have the main stage during every gaming convention and there will still be some weird ass overnight line to be the first one to buy corporate slop game 2026.
This basically describes society as a whole. The lowest denominators of society, at least 60% of the population , dictate how all of us live and die. That’s why things like Facebook exist. That’s why we let billionaires exist. That’s how people like Trump become leaders of the free world. That’s why we allow the “lobby” to make laws that only benefit a small group. Eradicate the idiots to solve all the worlds problems 😆
Yeah… game development layoffs are highly visible to us because game development is a high visibility, closely watched industry to obsessive nerds, but this is happening all the time in all kinds of industries.
They’re publically traded - they now only exist to generate profit, and that’s the only metric that matters to them. It’s the same in any industry, unfortunately.
Not paying the CEO a 38 million dollar bonus and instead keeping the devs on board to create future products for way less than 38 million dollars is more profitable.
Within a month of release it was a disaster. Player base plummeted because of the bait and switch they pulled, the bugs, and the lacklustre season passes, skins, and roadmap. One of the all time fumbles.
And yet, people bought it. I may sound like an old fart, but Battlefield hasn’t been good since BF2/2142. BF3 was a bait and switch where they said it was a return to PC focused gaming and not just a console port (was a console port), and they’ve been doing it ever since.
Even if you disagree with me and enjoyed the midlife BF, you have to admit the last few have been dumpsters. EA is a dumpster company, we all know this. Why ever give them the benifit of the doubt?
The reason is people are stupid (on average) and the concept of an informed consumer base (or electorate) is a fallacy. For every 1 person who says fuck EA there are 3 people that don’t care and 6 that aren’t paying enough attention for an opinion on the subject to even cross their mind. Advertising is the only thing that matters in this reality and they know it.
I disagree, I loved BF3, and BF4 (not at the cluster fuck broken launch, but 12 months after release), but that doesn’t really matter.
I didn’t buy any after that because yeah I agree they were garbage, but I bought 6 because after putting in tonnes of hours in the beta and being massively impressed at how it appeared to be a return to 3’s style like they specifically said, I didn’t think it would all be a lie and that the full release was basically just the crappy games again but with new problems.
On EA as company, I don’t really care either way. If they release a game I want to play I’ll buy it. I won’t really care if the company are “evil” or anything.
Nah, that’s an instant full account ban on Xbox/playstation/EA.
The product is as described on the box, it’s just not what we were made to believe it would be otherwise, so a chargeback is not the right way anyway. Not buying the next game by that company until after release and a bit more time is the way to go about it. I know I won’t buy another battlefield for a few months after release.
This will/has become the norm. Finish a project, lay off 60% of the team, skeleton crew keeps crunching fixes, pay the suits the profit and wages saved.
CEO that did fuck all gets a shit ton of money as a reward for doing fuck all and those that actually worked on the game with overtime and underpaid got the middle finger, makes perfect sense.
People need to stop working for these shitty “AAA” companies even if it’s to have it on their resume and idiots need to stop buying these games just so they can say they played every game in the series.
A great deal of the industry is powered by debt financing. And the CEO typically holds the job by gatekeeping access to that borrowed money.
Labor solidarity is predicated on being able to participate in the market. It isn’t as if people don’t try to Unionize. But if your office or your business or your entire industry can be casually strangled to death by the financial sector when a plurality demand a raise, there’s quickly nothing left to unionize.
Why do these guys look more and more like movie villains? What’s next? One will suddenly have a mustache that he will twirl? One will have an evil laugh? One will change his name to be Dr. John Evil?
I think the mustache twirl ceo of the year is Ammon McNeff of bricks and mini figs, no doubt some gaming CEO will adopt the look at some point, but few of the big ones really adopt more than a milquetoast fit so as to not fully give themselves away.
RetroFed
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I wonder if after the midterms the incident rate of factory and warehouse fires will rise?
Surprised game devs aren’t going all office space at this point.
How is beating the shit out of a copy machine supposed to help? /s
Hey, listen to Michael Bolton, it really helps.
That no talent ass clown?
Except here, the warehouse, is in cloud infrastructure with international redundancy. It would take a hell of a team of hackers to burn that down.
So don’t support them.. Support indie devs that deserve rewarding
indies should be able to create much more advanced games now. indies might just replace those aaa titles
Boycotts don’t stop EA money. They have superbowl ad money. The market of consumers that really just don’t give a shit about this is way too large, and they will go with what’s advertised to them constantly.
I’m not saying don’t boycott them. I have for decades. I’ve preached that for decades. It doesn’t work, the AAA dev is going to still have the main stage during every gaming convention and there will still be some weird ass overnight line to be the first one to buy corporate slop game 2026.
This basically describes society as a whole. The lowest denominators of society, at least 60% of the population , dictate how all of us live and die. That’s why things like Facebook exist. That’s why we let billionaires exist. That’s how people like Trump become leaders of the free world. That’s why we allow the “lobby” to make laws that only benefit a small group. Eradicate the idiots to solve all the worlds problems 😆
“Eradicate” through proper education, right?
Education can’t fix apathy. I don’t know what can, to be honest. Community, perhaps.
Yeah, and also things one can do that have some form of measurable impact, even if incremental.
Maybe we shouldn’t defend vaccines and public health and the problem will sort itself out.
Capitalism disassociates value from the labour that creates it and we.all just keep playing along.
Kind of. The folks at Blair Mountain stopped playing along and the cops went to war
Capitalism is messed up - ftfy
Yeah… game development layoffs are highly visible to us because game development is a high visibility, closely watched industry to obsessive nerds, but this is happening all the time in all kinds of industries.
Capitalism is truly messed up… let’s get rid of it.
I wish EA didn’t buy so many studios…
They’re publically traded - they now only exist to generate profit, and that’s the only metric that matters to them. It’s the same in any industry, unfortunately.
Not paying the CEO a 38 million dollar bonus and instead keeping the devs on board to create future products for way less than 38 million dollars is more profitable.
Yeah but that probably won’t impact the share price that much, for some reason.
EA is up 2% over a month. The stock market is full of idiots.
I don’t think any company should be able to buy another company. The same way people can’t buy other people
Financially BF6 was a smash hit.
Within a month of release it was a disaster. Player base plummeted because of the bait and switch they pulled, the bugs, and the lacklustre season passes, skins, and roadmap. One of the all time fumbles.
And yet, people bought it. I may sound like an old fart, but Battlefield hasn’t been good since BF2/2142. BF3 was a bait and switch where they said it was a return to PC focused gaming and not just a console port (was a console port), and they’ve been doing it ever since.
Even if you disagree with me and enjoyed the midlife BF, you have to admit the last few have been dumpsters. EA is a dumpster company, we all know this. Why ever give them the benifit of the doubt?
The reason is people are stupid (on average) and the concept of an informed consumer base (or electorate) is a fallacy. For every 1 person who says fuck EA there are 3 people that don’t care and 6 that aren’t paying enough attention for an opinion on the subject to even cross their mind. Advertising is the only thing that matters in this reality and they know it.
I disagree, I loved BF3, and BF4 (not at the cluster fuck broken launch, but 12 months after release), but that doesn’t really matter.
I didn’t buy any after that because yeah I agree they were garbage, but I bought 6 because after putting in tonnes of hours in the beta and being massively impressed at how it appeared to be a return to 3’s style like they specifically said, I didn’t think it would all be a lie and that the full release was basically just the crappy games again but with new problems.
On EA as company, I don’t really care either way. If they release a game I want to play I’ll buy it. I won’t really care if the company are “evil” or anything.
The only bit that matters is the first sentence. Games are here to make money now, same as everything else.
“Now”
Always have been.
People should file chargebacks “Product not as described” hits them harder than refunds.
Nah, that’s an instant full account ban on Xbox/playstation/EA.
The product is as described on the box, it’s just not what we were made to believe it would be otherwise, so a chargeback is not the right way anyway. Not buying the next game by that company until after release and a bit more time is the way to go about it. I know I won’t buy another battlefield for a few months after release.
This will/has become the norm. Finish a project, lay off 60% of the team, skeleton crew keeps crunching fixes, pay the suits the profit and wages saved.
And it would stop immediately if those workers had solidarity and refused to work on the project without the full team.
like a union. almost as if unions were created to protect the working class in the first place from these fat cats doing excatly this
Maybe. Or maybe companies like EA would implode under their own dysfunction and leave a multi-billion dollar hole in the industry for China to fill.
A lot of American companies do seem willing to commit suicide before they pay their workers equitably
All you can really do is not buy their shit, or if you must, buy it second-hand so EA, Nintendo, or whoever don’t profit directly.
The big studios keep giving me reasons to never ever buy one of their games and not even pirate them.
CEO that did fuck all gets a shit ton of money as a reward for doing fuck all and those that actually worked on the game with overtime and underpaid got the middle finger, makes perfect sense.
People need to stop working for these shitty “AAA” companies even if it’s to have it on their resume and idiots need to stop buying these games just so they can say they played every game in the series.
https://overpaid.lol/
Maybe one day programmers, artists, … will understand that the best way is cooperative, not having a CEO.
A great deal of the industry is powered by debt financing. And the CEO typically holds the job by gatekeeping access to that borrowed money.
Labor solidarity is predicated on being able to participate in the market. It isn’t as if people don’t try to Unionize. But if your office or your business or your entire industry can be casually strangled to death by the financial sector when a plurality demand a raise, there’s quickly nothing left to unionize.
Make your own games Devs, only way to brake your chains
How are devs supposed to live while making an indie game?
Also the added issue of not being able to market indie games effectively given the ocean of AI trash and asset flipping.
Also, using France as an example, gaming industry job offers declining by 71% since 2022. https://emploi.afjv.com/observatoire/metiers.php
It’s a hard world out there.
sounds like quitter talk to me. you can work and make your own game on the side.
So to be a game dev you have to not be a game dev? Which is it?
work and be a dev on your own time, you can do both if your not lazy.
nothing in life thats worth while comes easy and an actually good product can outshine Slop.
Why do these guys look more and more like movie villains? What’s next? One will suddenly have a mustache that he will twirl? One will have an evil laugh? One will change his name to be Dr. John Evil?
Because you have it backwards. Movie villains look like these guys.
I think the mustache twirl ceo of the year is Ammon McNeff of bricks and mini figs, no doubt some gaming CEO will adopt the look at some point, but few of the big ones really adopt more than a milquetoast fit so as to not fully give themselves away.
Googled him, first thought he was just looking like a normal bearded guy, then I noticed his mustache.
Dr John Evil only changed his surname from Balatro because he flirts with Evil
Today I found out people still buy these stupid games. Wtf?!
This is why we can’t have nice things and then somehow you are a toxic left extremist when you want billionaire shareholders to be uninstalled.
I don’t even know what I would do with that much money.
Retire?
I’d buy a house, set up a retirement fund and pay a bunch of politicians to support green energy.
I’ve misread and thought you’d buy a horse. I’d support both decisions.
Better keep for yourself, genuinely. 28 million for green lobbying is a drop in the ocean against Big Oil lobbying.
They get 730 billion USD worldwide in government subsidies ONLY. Nevermind them also, like, having awesome profit margins.
I am all for climate action, but not throwing away 28m into the abyss.
I could retire twice over for that amount of money and I’d still have most of it left
Can’t let that santorum trickle down.
Battlefield 6 is so bad, I didn’t even know it was released. And I’ve played all the other 5+
I can never not think of that dude as anything but Android Wilson.
seems gaming is fcked, especially people graduating from college trying to get in as a designer/dev too.
Excited for Battlefield 7
Andrew Wilson. Approximate net worth $1 billion.