#EA layoffs

[emptyadderallbottle]

EA laying off Apex Legends Devs and planning on replacing them with AI

(The first link is to PC Mag, it has pop-ups, so I recommend using an ad blocker.)

According to articles I've seen recently, EA has been laying off employees and plans on replacing some Apex Legends devs with AI in order to increase ingame micro transactions.

Because of this, according to the second link, some players have begun boycotting the game and EA, along with no longer playing the game altogether.

I honestly haven't played the game since the beginning of Breakout, so I could get cosmetics from the anniversary event 💀

But, if what these articles say is true, then I plan on not spending any more money on EA altogether tbh.

If you play the Sims 4, I have a link to a DLC unlocker. I'll link it below. It's by someone in the Sims 4 tumblr community, so there's no need to go any sketchy websites.

I use this and highly recommend using it if you play the game as well. All the Sims 4 DLC combined (kits, packs, etc.) would cost well over a thousand dollars, and no one has that kind of money to be spending on games in this economy 💀

If I find out any more info, I'll try my best to keep this post updated.

[l3rking]

I know it’s a meaningless gesture, and my abstinence means nothing in the grand scheme of things, but I’m just not going to be playing any new games published by any of the big players. No Activision, no EA, no Sony, no Ubisoft, etc.

Catch me supporting indies and emulating the oldies.

[legionofpotatoes]

despite having as loaded a past as they do, bioware firing mary kirby is legitimately the most insane decision they've made to date, bar none

[barbex]

A company is supposed to produce a product. Who will make those products if you fire everyone to buy your own share back?

[disciple-of-frost]

EA is a garbage company and they ruin anything they touch....

[amochi]

part of me is wondering if they got a good ways through production and when bg3 came out they went "oh fuck, we should do shit like that" and are now scrambling to add features no one wants

That same thought crossed my mind when I started playing bg3 like I bet EA was shaking in their fucking boots

[devsgames]

Just this week in games:

- EA laid off 700 workers

- Sony laid of 900 workers

- Rockstar announces in-person work mandates for all employees (a 'soft layoff' that will force some staff to quit, which likely means that actual layoffs are forthcoming)

In 2023 6,000 games workers were laid off. Now in 2024 over 10,000 workers have been laid off, and there's still 10 months to go.

Not to be hyperbolic, but I think this is perhaps the worst year for video games ever if we're measuring by number of layoffs.

[pixlime]

Ok who are we rooting for to kick off the next Upcoming Video Game Crash

I'm kinda keeping my eye on Ubisoft, but they are, against all odds, still thriving despite doing some fuckshit like every year

so more realistically I think EA is going to shut down Bioware

[casimirmiru]

"Kennedy also said that some of the laid-off employees were given the impression that asking for the severance they’re owed by law could potentially become a financial burden to the studio and further jeopardize the development of Dreadwolf, a game that’s already had to be reworked and is reportedly overdue."

Actually scummy if true. Heaven forbid EA or Bioware pay a good severance. And no, they did good this year, they are not hurting for money.

[mxdwn]

EA Plans to Lay Off 6% of its Workers for Restructuring

https://games.mxdwn.com/news/ea-plans-to-lay-off-6-of-its-workers-for-restructuring/

[jose96853]

MORE LAYOFFS!!! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!!!

Now EA (Electronic Arts) is laying off workers. I think if we did not have people locked for over a year in their homes this would not be happening. The policies of the Biden Administration really screwed up the economy. That’s my opinion. Read more here: https://cordcuttersnews.com/electronic-arts-ceo-announces-6-of-their-workforce-will-be-laid-off/

[felassan]

[source (Senior Reporter at Kotaku), linked Kotaku article, two, 'FC 24's performance link', three, four, @/N7SeveranceDay (source of the last two images, "Account supporting BioWare employees laid off in 2023."), five, six, Polygon tweet, Polygon article]

"BioWare Continues to Refuse to Pay Severance" statement transcript:

“BioWare Continues to Refuse to Pay Severance On August 23 of this year, BioWare eliminated “approximately 50 roles at BioWare”. Following the layoffs, seven ex-BioWare employees engaged the services of R. Alex Kennedy to represent their interests, stating that the amount of severance offered was insufficient under Alberta common law. Counsel for the employees has attempted to reach a compromise that would avoid requiring lengthy court proceedings, but BioWare’s lawyers refused any offers to negotiate and settle out of court. The basis of Kennedy’s claim is that according to Alberta precedents and under Canadian law, these employees should be receiving approximately 1.7 months of severance per year of service they gave to BioWare. BioWare has now filed a Statement of Defence, which argues that the seven terminated employees are only entitled to two weeks of severance per year spent in service to BioWare, because of a contract provision that Kennedy says is not enforceable. The filing means BioWare will be taking these former employees to court rather than working towards finding an out of court resolution. The developers involved in the suit have expressed their disappointment: - “We are disappointed that BioWare prefers stalling and intimidation tactics to fair dealing with people who have given years, and in some cases decades, of dedication and hard work to the company.” - “We believe they are using intimidation and stalling tactics to try and get us to drop out. A lot of the more junior employees and those with families, who had more monetary pressure on them, could not risk waiting on a court case that may take many months more to resolve, and have already had to drop out.” - “At the time of the layoffs, BioWare offered us professional assistance in finding new employment, and an additional payment, but ONLY on the condition that we signed an agreement saying we cannot talk about any details of the settlement, and that we would completely waive any right to legal action or even to complain in any way about anyone associated with BioWare now or ever in the future. Tactics like that sure make me think that BioWare knows it is in the wrong.” - “Despite what they publicly announced when they laid us off, this process has been anything but empathetic, respectful, and communicative.” The latest BioWare layoffs were the third round so far this year, and many of the developers affected even in earlier rounds are still searching for work, though some have started to find new positions. Regardless of employment status, the members of the current lawsuit state they remain determined to pursue BioWare in court, regardless of their employment status: - “We strongly believe that if Dragon Age: Dreadwolf does not do as well as BioWare or EA wants at launch, there will be more, even larger layoffs. Therefore, regardless of our own well-being, we believe it is important to hold BioWare responsible and get a clear decision on what settlement amount is legal. We’re no longer part of the development team, so the best way we can help our former teammates now is to hold BioWare accountable and ensure that the next group who is laid off are not treated as poorly as we were.” November 7th marks “N7 Day”, which is a fan celebration of BioWare’s Mass Effect games featuring Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy. The developers involved in the lawsuit are hoping N7 Day this year will be a reminder to BioWare of the importance of loyalty to your crew, and hope fans can have a little fun and help express their support with memes and images using an #N7SeveranceDay hashtag. The ex-employees involved in the suit are all based in Canada and have an average of 14 years at BioWare.”

[source]

You can express your support using the hashtag #N7SeveranceDay.

Edit: [Part 2/update] [more on the Keywords topic]

[dduane]

…W. T. F.

[theharlotofferelden]

Gonna need to put Mary Kirby + other long time staff being fired into perspective because this isn't a recent development. Bioware has been plagued with issues for well over a decade, and it's not just because of EA.

When Gaider decided to move on from Dragon Age in 2014, everyone thought it was just because he wanted to move onto a different project. He ended up leaving the company completely in 2016 after working on Anthem for a bit, and it was later reported that staff on the project had issues with his writing. He didn't mention why he left Bioware until very recently in a long twitter thread detailing that, while Bioware is a company known for its storytelling and characters, upper management went from valuing its writers to quietly resenting them, and feeling as though the writing were "holding the company back."

When they started working with Frostbite they encountered so many technical problems with it because it was specifically designed for FPS games. They were literally designing the tools they needed to work on both Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda while they were working on those games. Darrah (or perhaps Laidlaw, I forget which) even acknowledged when he was interviewed by Jason Schreier for Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, that this is a big industry no-no. But Bioware was put in a hard spot to either work with Frostbite or use the Eclipse engine that DAO was designed on (which I'm assuming would've required developing the engine and toolkit further to bring the graphics up to industry standards). So they ended up working with Frostbite which resulted in a fuckton of issues both for Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda, because the teams behind both projects had to design their own tools.

With the added stress of the toolkit also came the toxic work environment, departments that were perpetually understaffed, directors leaving and new writers coming in with different visions for the project, time mismanagement where they spent too much time on "high concept" gameplay, not having a clear vision for the game, resentments between studios, inexperience with coordinating video calls across multiple studios, the resultant mandatory crunch, etc. All of this is mentioned in this article about Mass Effect Andromeda's production cycle and this article about Anthem's.

Casey Hudson and Gérard Lehiany left Bioware in 2014 right in the middle of production on Andromeda (Casey rejoined the company as general manager in 2017, but left again in 2020). David Gaider left in 2016 in the middle of production on Anthem, as did Aaryn Flynn who left before the game was shipped in 2019. Mike Laidlaw left in 2017 and left production of Dragon Age Dreadwolf in Mark Darrah's hands, who left in the middle of its production in 2020. Matt Goldman (creative director for Dreadwolf) left the following year. Mac Walters (production director on Dreadwolf) who's been with the company for over 19 years left in January of this year. Are you seeing the pattern here?

I don't doubt that EA has influence over Bioware considering the recent layoffs appear related to the announcement back in March that EA would lay off 6% of its workforce. But it's clear there's something deeper that's going on at Bioware, and it's really not good.

When veteran senior staff are leaving one by one along with other long time staff, and it's been reported that the studio has a toxic work environment with management issues that make crunch necessary, there is something deeply wrong with the company and how things are being run. This is a sinking ship, and in all likelihood everyone is betting on keeping the company afloat with the success of Dragon Age Dreadwolf and/or the next Mass Effects game.

I want to say something more about how broadly the mainstream AAA video games industry is abusive and how incredibly fucked up their practices of layoffs have been normalized, but this is already pretty long. What I will say is that I'm not claiming this means DA4 or the next ME game is going to tank. It sure as fuck doesn't look good for it, but despite my grievances with Dragon Age, I do want the game to be successful and for Bioware to keep doing what they're doing.

And honestly, whether those games do well or not is really besides the point. Something is wrong at Bioware, whether it's the company itself or the fact it's owned by EA, and it can't be solved with mass layoffs. This is a cultural problem within the company itself, and it's very unlikely to be addressed considering how MEA failing seems to have done little to change how things are being run right now.

[askagamedev]

About Unity these past few days

A lot of people have asked me about Unity and their strange new per-install charges policy that they rolled out on September 12th, 2023. I wanted to give them at least 24 hours before I posted my take on it - let the dust settle a bit so I could get a chance to read the new policy properly and all that. First, however, I think we need to take a step back and get a wider perspective. Unity Software Inc. is in some serious financial trouble. Here are their operating numbers from 2019 to 2023.

The blue line here is how much money they take in and the red line is the amount of money they are spending each year. You may notice that they are spending significantly more money year over year than they earn. In fact, over the past 12 months alone (August 2022 to August 2023), Unity Software Inc. has lost almost $1 billion.

In 2022, Unity spent four times as much money as they did in 2019. If they had managed to keep costs at double their spending in 2019, they still would have earned $243 million in profit. Instead, they lost $882 million in 2022.

Where does all of this cost come from? In any software company like Unity, the vast vast majority of costs comes from employee salaries. And we can directly see it in Unity's number of employees:

Unity Software Inc. more than tripled its headcount from 2019 to 2022, and it did all of this hiring during the pandemic while competing with many many other developers all trying to hire from the same pool. I don't work for Unity, but I was in the market and I had lots of recruiters trying to recruit me during that time.

In short, Unity is suffering from the same miscalculation that Embracer Group did, that EA did, that Activision-Blizzard did, that Square-Enix did, and just about everybody else in the tech industry - they misjudged the good times at the beginning of the pandemic, overspent hiring people thinking the good times would last, and are now scrambling to figure out how to survive. The difference is that Unity was getting all of their operating money from Venture Capitalists (VCs) hoping that they would eventually become profitable, but VC money has all but dried up because it's become much more expensive to borrow money over the past two years.

As a result, the Unity executives are likely grasping at straws in hopes of saving a sinking ship. This wild and decidedly senseless pricing plan is their (seemingly-desperate) attempt to juice their revenues. It really makes very little sense from the developer perspective, which is what makes the whole thing reek of desperation. That isn't greed talking, it's survival. My guess is that Unity is currently desperately looking for a buyer to save them and doing whatever they can to buy themselves some more runway. They already announced layoffs back in May, but I suspect they'll probably have to announce some really big layoffs (e.g. 40-50%) soon. Unity Software Inc. is living on borrowed time and they know it.

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[twinsimming]

Layoff Mod by Twinsimming 💼❌

This mod is inspired by the layoff feature from The Sims 4: Growing Together, reimagined for The Sims 3.

This is a script mod that can be placed in your Packages folder. It was built and tested on 1.69 but should work fine on 1.67.

Overview

Getting Laid Off

Severance & Unemployment Benefits

New Moodlet

Getting Laid Off

Sims YA and older who work in rabbithole careers have a 2% chance of getting laid off from their jobs at the end of each work day. If a sim is laid off, they will get the custom Laid Off moodlet and be offered severance and/or unemployment, depending on their career level at the time of the layoff.

Level 1: No severance or unemployment benefits

Level 2-4: Only unemployment benefits

Level 5-7: Severance and unemployment benefits

Sims at career level 8 or higher, self-employed, or in active professions will never be laid off.

After a sim is laid off, they cannot reapply for their previous career or any other career available at the same rabbithole until the Laid Off moodlet expires in one sim week.

Severance & Unemployment Benefits

Severance is offered to laid off employees who previously held a career level of 5 or higher. The lump sum payout is determined by the following equation:

((Base pay per hour) x (Hours worked per day)) x kDaysOfSeverancePay (default: 5) = Total Severance Payout

Unemployment benefits are automatically given to laid off employees who previously held a career level of 2 or higher. This is a once a day payment of §50 (tunable), lasting until the Laid Off moodlet expires in one sim week or your sim gets a new job; whichever comes first.

New Moodlet

Laid Off: Given when a sim is laid off from their job, lasts 7 days, -50 mood, makes sims stressed

Tuning

All of the tunable values can be found on the mod download page under the header “Tuning”.

Mod Recommendation

I would suggest using this mod alongside Gamefreak130’s Job Overhaul mod, for an extra challenge in getting a sim back on their feet and back into the job market following a layoff.

Conflicts & Known Issues

This is a new script mod so there shouldn’t be any conflicts.

Sims will get the Fired moodlet and fired notification when laid off, but those can be ignored.

Credits

EA/Maxis for The Sims 3 and The Sims 4, Visual Studio 2019, ILSpy, Gimp, Notepad++, and Script Mod Template Creator.

Thank You

A special thank you to gamefreak130, @zoeoe-sims, @flotheory, and @phoebejaysims!

If you like my work, please consider tipping me on Ko-fi 💙

Download @ ModTheSims