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Regarding your comment of toxicity inside---when was this? Is this from personnel experience? Reason I ask is that 'toxic' is counter to my experience while wor

by hsmyers 14y ago

Regarding your comment of toxicity inside---when was this? Is this from personnel experience? Reason I ask is that 'toxic' is counter to my experience while working for them. Had a great time working with an equally great team. No pointy hairs in sight. That however was in 93 and things may well have changed.

benparsons 14y ago
1993? Probably fair to say a lot has changed in the last 20 years! I don't really follow EA closely, but even so they have a poor image (of what it's like internally.) Google "EA spouse" for a start, the resulting material presents them in a very poor light, even in the (poor) context of the games industry.
jrajav 14y ago
I have no personal experience, so I'll defer to yours, but my impression comes from stories like this one: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
speeder 14y ago
I never worked for EA, but I know people. 1993 EA has nothing to do with EA from 1996 onwards... EA screwed Origin (that then they already owned, just read stuff about development of Ultima 8 and 9... there are lots of documents about how executive meddling made U8 a meh game, and U9 a totally ruined game), then bought and ruined Westwood, and so on. Also as the time passed they got more and more problems with employees. Then we had crazy shit, like when EA closed a studio in LA, and people found out that the studio had more middle managers than grunts, and this is why the studio could not decide what to do, it simply had so much people giving orders and so few people doing, that doing stuff was impossible. The EA that wrote this: http://chrishecker.com/Can_a_Computer_Make_You_Cry%3F http://chrishecker.com/Can_a_Computer_Make_You_Cry%3F doesn't exist anymore.
- anonymous 14y ago
  Can you elaborate on what happened in '96? EA have been on my "pirate their games if you really MUST see them yourself" list for a decade at least. However, I wasn't really a gamer back in '93-'96, so I don't know how they used to be and how they changed.
  - speeder 14y ago
    I never tried to track what happened exactly, or why. But their games back then start to suffer from lots of executive meddling, with EA interfering more and more on the artistry of their game authors. My best guess it is related to the launch of Playstation in late 1995, spurring a race for 3D games and FMV games, requiring much more money than before, and thus requiring more "risk management."
zipdog 14y ago
I've been with an EA studio for the last five months and met with people from a dozen other EA studios and like you toxic is not a word I would use to describe the EA I have seen. Quite the opposite
JackpotDen 14y ago
"That however was in 93 and things may well have changed." There's your problem. At some point EA started buying up studios to take the IP and fire the employees. Then they went on a micro purchase bender and got rid of any idea of respecting the customer.

by hsmyers 14y ago

benparsons 14y ago

1993? Probably fair to say a lot has changed in the last 20 years! I don't really follow EA closely, but even so they have a poor image (of what it's like internally.) Google "EA spouse" for a start, the resulting material presents them in a very poor light, even in the (poor) context of the games industry.

jrajav 14y ago

I have no personal experience, so I'll defer to yours, but my impression comes from stories like this one: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html

speeder 14y ago

I never worked for EA, but I know people. 1993 EA has nothing to do with EA from 1996 onwards... EA screwed Origin (that then they already owned, just read stuff about development of Ultima 8 and 9... there are lots of documents about how executive meddling made U8 a meh game, and U9 a totally ruined game), then bought and ruined Westwood, and so on. Also as the time passed they got more and more problems with employees. Then we had crazy shit, like when EA closed a studio in LA, and people found out that the studio had more middle managers than grunts, and this is why the studio could not decide what to do, it simply had so much people giving orders and so few people doing, that doing stuff was impossible. The EA that wrote this: http://chrishecker.com/Can_a_Computer_Make_You_Cry%3F http://chrishecker.com/Can_a_Computer_Make_You_Cry%3F doesn't exist anymore.

anonymous 14y ago
Can you elaborate on what happened in '96? EA have been on my "pirate their games if you really MUST see them yourself" list for a decade at least. However, I wasn't really a gamer back in '93-'96, so I don't know how they used to be and how they changed.
- speeder 14y ago
  I never tried to track what happened exactly, or why. But their games back then start to suffer from lots of executive meddling, with EA interfering more and more on the artistry of their game authors. My best guess it is related to the launch of Playstation in late 1995, spurring a race for 3D games and FMV games, requiring much more money than before, and thus requiring more "risk management."

zipdog 14y ago

I've been with an EA studio for the last five months and met with people from a dozen other EA studios and like you toxic is not a word I would use to describe the EA I have seen. Quite the opposite

JackpotDen 14y ago

"That however was in 93 and things may well have changed." There's your problem. At some point EA started buying up studios to take the IP and fire the employees. Then they went on a micro purchase bender and got rid of any idea of respecting the customer.