Well, there goes that.

KillerGremlin · 02-04-2009, 05:03 AM

http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=2937

EA cuts 1,100 jobs.

Dyne · 02-04-2009, 03:56 PM

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. Also, the official word is that no Turok II had ever been announced.. so my work is safe.

Also..

Quote:

The truth kind of hurts, but this decision was likely due to the fact that Turok failed to meet expectations either in sales, and apologies, artistically as well. In the end, its a business, and when your profits don't exceed your investment, people lose their jobs regardless of how well the economy is going.

Sales of the last game had nothing to do with it. It sold over a million across three platforms. They made more than enough - enough to hold two projects at once. However, Disney got greedy with money. (DISNEY of all people.) I think it's just in fashion to ruin people's lives in the Vancouver game industry right now.

Also, curiously, they only fired the artists and level designers. The expensive programmers were kept. It goes to show you, I'm in the right field.

This doesn't exactly mean the end of my career, but it hurts my plan B, which was to get back in Development Support again. But I didn't know if they'd want to lower my wage back down to Dev Support level again since my programming salary was so high. But I might have an opportunity in June again for another Coop.. cross your fingers.

KillerGremlin · 02-05-2009, 01:57 AM

You can always get a job at EA adding new players to their sport games each year while avoiding adding any new innovation. And then you can charge 60 bucks for it and slap a new 'XX on the title.

Professor S · 02-05-2009, 09:03 AM

Now that EA is laying people off, maybe the economy is finally hitting the gaming industry. The numbers I used as reference were 19% higher for 2008, but that might very well be front loaded from the beginning of the year. Sometimes companies can have pre-emptive layoffs in the expectation of a downturn as well.

And Dyne, I had no idea Turok sold that well. My apologies for making assumptions based on limited and incomplete information.

Maybe the economy is finally hitting the gaming industry after all... sucks.

And IMO, EA has made great strides in diverisfying their product in the past year or so. Their diversitfied product just doesn't seem to sell as well.