5 ms·

EA has a reputation for being more akin to a sweatshop than a place where passionate people work on things they love, and it's been that way for many years now.

EA has a reputation for being more akin to a sweatshop than a place where passionate people work on things they love, and it's been that way for many years now. I do feel bad for anyone who works in that type of environment, but I don't think many (if any) of their employees are under the impression that their work will be lauded by adoring fans. Gamers resent everything that EA stands for -- especially their constant profiteering and manipulation -- and begrudgingly buy their games because they're one of the few companies with the budget to create AAA titles. Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios...

roc 14y ago
> "Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios..." Further to this point: Maxis, makers of Sim City, were notable for a long time as being the glaring exception when it came to EA's habit of buying and squeezing studios to death. But the writing was on the wall when THE SIMS hit so big and was.. "exploited"[1] so heavily. And when Will left... well, it's just flat-out inconceivable that anyone remained naive about what EA was going to get up to. [1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I remember when The Sims was first announced, where Maxis was saying "And most of the game isn't even done yet. We've got loads of new stuff we'll release for free online!" which turned into dozens of boxed expansion packs. Yuck.
  - RexRollman 14y ago
    Really? Wow, what a bunch of jerks. I am surprised that anyone even wants to buy a game from them after something like that.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      Yet they do keep buying, year after year. They want the polish of AAA EA titles as compared to indie fare, and they're willing to bend over to get it. Its the whole consumer versus content producer battle in a microcosm, and it doesn't make consumers look good. It's easy to get away with being a shitty company like EA when people line up to get "Madden" versus some non-branded sports game.
- sshumaker 14y ago
  That's slightly revisionist history. EA bought Maxis when they weren't in great financial shape (it didn't help that basically every Friday was spent at the bar). It's true that the Sims was a huge success that EA didn't anticipate (they repeatedly tried to kill the project), but the jury is still out if Maxis would have survived long enough to release it without EA's funding and support.
  - mmanfrin 14y ago
    EA bought Maxis when they weren't in great financial shape I'm not familiar with the specifics, but if Maxis was in such dire straits, why did Wright become the largest shareholder of EA as a result of the takeover? And his partner became CEO for a while.
    - ekianjo 14y ago
      > Wright become the largest shareholder of EA as a result of the takeover Sources?
      - pyre 14y ago
        From Wikipedia[1]: > The company's IPO took place in 1995. In 1997, after > setbacks on a series of secondary titles, Braun and > Wright sold Maxis to Electronic Arts for US$120 > million in stock. The deal made Braun the largest > shareholder in EA at the time. Not Wright, but a result of the purchase. Also from Wikipedia[2]: > Maxis went public in 1995 with revenue of US$38 million. > The stock reached $50 a share and then dropped as Maxis > posted a loss. EA bought Maxis in June 1997. and > It was a difficult idea to sell to EA, because > already 40% of Maxis's employees had been laid > off. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Braun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Braun [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wright_(game_designer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wright_(game_designer)
  - roc 14y ago
    I wasn't remotely talking about money; about why Maxis sold, whether they had to or anything along those lines. You're projecting an argument I never made. I'm talking purely about the games and the people who make them. EA buys studios and squeezes them. Why the studios subjected themselves to it is irrelevant to the fact that it happened. Repeatedly. Pretty much non-stop since Trip walked out the door. EA's long-standing treatment of their employees and the properties they owned, in the pursuit of a release schedule that burned out both in short order, is not revisionist history. It is EA's history.
- LandoCalrissian 14y ago
  I shed a tear for Westwood studios.
  - cantankerous 14y ago
    "A Tear?" I'm still in mourning.
  - theg2 14y ago
    Westwood was failing and wasn't going to survive on it's own. It's a sad fact but EA bought them up in order to save the franchises and the jobs of many developers.
- sehugg 14y ago
  I would like to have seen SimMars (and SimCastle). http://www.shacknews.com/article/60839/new-images-of-maxis-cancelled http://www.shacknews.com/article/60839/new-images-of-maxis-c...
- vor_ 14y ago
  That cartoon is about Bobby Kotick of Activision.
  - roc 14y ago
    Yes and EA is openly following the same playbook and has been less-openly following it for years. One could argue Activision took it from EA.
junkilo 14y ago
Some places in EA are amazing places to work at. Others have challenges. They aren't the only game company that has seen studios do sub-standard work after being acquired.
- pifflesnort 14y ago
  You're seriously blaming this on Maxis? I think the respective records of EA and a pre-EA Maxis ought to provide ample evidence of the likely culprit here.
  - junkilo 14y ago
    I was speaking more broadly. This isn't the first time EA has seriously blown a launch due to infrastructure issues I realize. EA's main infrastructure server team runs things like a pre-dotbomb forture 5. I'm slow to throw blame since EA's acquisitions chose to join EA. Technical Directors at Maxis are just as much to blame as well as product/project managers that fail to squeeze load testing into the busy schedule. I do (sadly) agree that studios seem to lose their magic to us gamers once they join EA. Why?
    - pifflesnort 14y ago
      > I do (sadly) agree that studios seem to lose their magic to us gamers once they join EA. Why? I'll give you one guess.
    - InvisibleCities 14y ago
      >since EA's acquisitions chose to join EA. Not quite correct. Maxis' shareholders decided to join EA; I doubt the average programmer, or even the average project manager or tech lead had any say in the process whatsoever.
      - junkilo 14y ago
        true. however if (coders ran the world); we would
  - 14y ago
NoPiece 14y ago
This cartoon is an interesting take on EA acquisitions... http://i.imgur.com/zFrTB.jpg http://i.imgur.com/zFrTB.jpg
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
_delirium 14y ago
My own personal anecdote is that most of my Bay-Area game-industry contacts were at Maxis: around 8-9 of them. And precisely none of them are still with EA today. Some have left to freelance, some to do indie games, some to do regular tech jobs outside the game industry entirely (e.g. would rather work for Lockheed than EA).
- yarou 14y ago
  Whoa, Lockheed. Talk about a complete shift in career(s)...though I suppose programming UAVs is in some perverse way reminiscent of game programming. :)
  - dpiers 14y ago
    Former game-dev here: Simulation programming is one of the most viable exits for developers looking to get away from the game space.
    - mpyne 14y ago
      Thankfully so... I once ran an Ohio-class SSBN aground in a channel in a loss-of-all-possible-NAVAIDS casualty. Luckily it was in a simulator (unluckily, our bosses were there to see it happen).
      - darkarmani 14y ago
        Your sextant wasn't working?
        mpyne 14y ago
        You can't navigate through "the doglegs" by shooting an azimuth to the sun, that would take too long, it would be safer to DR through on a stopwatch. Either way though, hard to shoot an accurate azimuth when heavy fog miraculously rolls in out of nowhere and limits visibility to ~100 ft from the bridge. :)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

roc 14y ago

> "Takeover by EA is usually considered a death knell for game studios..." Further to this point: Maxis, makers of Sim City, were notable for a long time as being the glaring exception when it came to EA's habit of buying and squeezing studios to death. But the writing was on the wall when THE SIMS hit so big and was.. "exploited"[1] so heavily. And when Will left... well, it's just flat-out inconceivable that anyone remained naive about what EA was going to get up to. [1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/05

MartinCron 14y ago
I remember when The Sims was first announced, where Maxis was saying "And most of the game isn't even done yet. We've got loads of new stuff we'll release for free online!" which turned into dozens of boxed expansion packs. Yuck.
- RexRollman 14y ago
  Really? Wow, what a bunch of jerks. I am surprised that anyone even wants to buy a game from them after something like that.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Yet they do keep buying, year after year. They want the polish of AAA EA titles as compared to indie fare, and they're willing to bend over to get it. Its the whole consumer versus content producer battle in a microcosm, and it doesn't make consumers look good. It's easy to get away with being a shitty company like EA when people line up to get "Madden" versus some non-branded sports game.
sshumaker 14y ago
That's slightly revisionist history. EA bought Maxis when they weren't in great financial shape (it didn't help that basically every Friday was spent at the bar). It's true that the Sims was a huge success that EA didn't anticipate (they repeatedly tried to kill the project), but the jury is still out if Maxis would have survived long enough to release it without EA's funding and support.
- mmanfrin 14y ago
  EA bought Maxis when they weren't in great financial shape I'm not familiar with the specifics, but if Maxis was in such dire straits, why did Wright become the largest shareholder of EA as a result of the takeover? And his partner became CEO for a while.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    > Wright become the largest shareholder of EA as a result of the takeover Sources?
    - pyre 14y ago
      From Wikipedia[1]: > The company's IPO took place in 1995. In 1997, after > setbacks on a series of secondary titles, Braun and > Wright sold Maxis to Electronic Arts for US$120 > million in stock. The deal made Braun the largest > shareholder in EA at the time. Not Wright, but a result of the purchase. Also from Wikipedia[2]: > Maxis went public in 1995 with revenue of US$38 million. > The stock reached $50 a share and then dropped as Maxis > posted a loss. EA bought Maxis in June 1997. and > It was a difficult idea to sell to EA, because > already 40% of Maxis's employees had been laid > off. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Braun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Braun [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wright_(game_designer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wright_(game_designer)
- roc 14y ago
  I wasn't remotely talking about money; about why Maxis sold, whether they had to or anything along those lines. You're projecting an argument I never made. I'm talking purely about the games and the people who make them. EA buys studios and squeezes them. Why the studios subjected themselves to it is irrelevant to the fact that it happened. Repeatedly. Pretty much non-stop since Trip walked out the door. EA's long-standing treatment of their employees and the properties they owned, in the pursuit of a release schedule that burned out both in short order, is not revisionist history. It is EA's history.
LandoCalrissian 14y ago
I shed a tear for Westwood studios.
- cantankerous 14y ago
  "A Tear?" I'm still in mourning.
- theg2 14y ago
  Westwood was failing and wasn't going to survive on it's own. It's a sad fact but EA bought them up in order to save the franchises and the jobs of many developers.
sehugg 14y ago
I would like to have seen SimMars (and SimCastle). http://www.shacknews.com/article/60839/new-images-of-maxis-cancelled http://www.shacknews.com/article/60839/new-images-of-maxis-c...
vor_ 14y ago
That cartoon is about Bobby Kotick of Activision.
- roc 14y ago
  Yes and EA is openly following the same playbook and has been less-openly following it for years. One could argue Activision took it from EA.

junkilo 14y ago

Some places in EA are amazing places to work at. Others have challenges. They aren't the only game company that has seen studios do sub-standard work after being acquired.

pifflesnort 14y ago
You're seriously blaming this on Maxis? I think the respective records of EA and a pre-EA Maxis ought to provide ample evidence of the likely culprit here.
- junkilo 14y ago
  I was speaking more broadly. This isn't the first time EA has seriously blown a launch due to infrastructure issues I realize. EA's main infrastructure server team runs things like a pre-dotbomb forture 5. I'm slow to throw blame since EA's acquisitions chose to join EA. Technical Directors at Maxis are just as much to blame as well as product/project managers that fail to squeeze load testing into the busy schedule. I do (sadly) agree that studios seem to lose their magic to us gamers once they join EA. Why?
  - pifflesnort 14y ago
    > I do (sadly) agree that studios seem to lose their magic to us gamers once they join EA. Why? I'll give you one guess.
  - InvisibleCities 14y ago
    >since EA's acquisitions chose to join EA. Not quite correct. Maxis' shareholders decided to join EA; I doubt the average programmer, or even the average project manager or tech lead had any say in the process whatsoever.
    - junkilo 14y ago
      true. however if (coders ran the world); we would
- 14y ago

NoPiece 14y ago

This cartoon is an interesting take on EA acquisitions... http://i.imgur.com/zFrTB.jpg http://i.imgur.com/zFrTB.jpg

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

_delirium 14y ago

My own personal anecdote is that most of my Bay-Area game-industry contacts were at Maxis: around 8-9 of them. And precisely none of them are still with EA today. Some have left to freelance, some to do indie games, some to do regular tech jobs outside the game industry entirely (e.g. would rather work for Lockheed than EA).

yarou 14y ago
Whoa, Lockheed. Talk about a complete shift in career(s)...though I suppose programming UAVs is in some perverse way reminiscent of game programming. :)
- dpiers 14y ago
  Former game-dev here: Simulation programming is one of the most viable exits for developers looking to get away from the game space.
  - mpyne 14y ago
    Thankfully so... I once ran an Ohio-class SSBN aground in a channel in a loss-of-all-possible-NAVAIDS casualty. Luckily it was in a simulator (unluckily, our bosses were there to see it happen).
    - darkarmani 14y ago
      Your sextant wasn't working?
      - mpyne 14y ago
        You can't navigate through "the doglegs" by shooting an azimuth to the sun, that would take too long, it would be safer to DR through on a stopwatch. Either way though, hard to shoot an accurate azimuth when heavy fog miraculously rolls in out of nowhere and limits visibility to ~100 ft from the bridge. :)

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]