RE: Rumor: Mythic layoffs affect QA, customer support

[Mbj]

Folks,

Two things to keep in mind:

1) Our CEO JR has publicly stated the need to cut costs across all of EA. This statement is old news and applies all throughout EA.

2) As part of EA, all studios are expected to do their fair share to meet the expectations of our CEO.

It isn't any more complicated than that other than to say that we have a very large studio and pretty much every person there has been and will continue to work on WAR for quite a while (meaning we haven't started work on another game yet). When we launched, we had over 400+ people working on the game in one capacity or another so it's not like we had a small team at launch or even a small team now.

Oh, and the whole (OMG, we're losing 1/2 the developer (or even of the total team) thing) is total nonsense. This is one of the times I really, really wish I could comment more than I can but if you look at what JR has said in terms of *cost* cutting, that should give you a good idea about what is happening throughout EA.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Bowlartz

"OMG, we're losing 1/2 the developer"


No one said that. They said according to the rumors you are loosing a chunk of QA and play testers. What worries people is those are likely more important for your game right now than the Devs. I mean you have been playing right? The list of bugs that is beyond belief? Please tell me you are aware of the staggering amounts of bugs.

Yeap, I'm aware of the bugs and we had hoped to get them in a patch before winter break but we couldn't. Lots of incoming bug fixes with the next major patch as well as lots of other stuff. Like I said, I wish I could talk more about things like possible/actual layoffs but I have very specific guidelines I need to follow right now in regards to this topic.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by MlCRO

The economy is in the crapper unemployment is shooting through the roof and people think the gaming industry is immune to this. Some of you are either to young to be dealing with putting food on the table and paying a mortgage or are just plan stupid.

I prefer to believe that most people who post are simply concerned about WAR/Mythic/humanity and some other just want to grief the forums. Hey, I can be a wild-eyed optimist at times eh?

The world's economy is indeed in trouble, companies like Circuit City are shutting down and things are probably going to get worse before they get better just about anywhere. Damn, there goes the optimistic me, crushed.

OTOH, I have a very large team continuing to work on WAR now and going forward and we'll continue to build with that.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by ZartanAround

the game industry is one of few that has shown record profits even in these uncertain times.

Is that why every game company's stock is down hugely from just a year ago? Even Activision/Blizzard's stock is a lot lower than it was when the merger/stock split happened. All the game companies that I follow have had a tough year. Check the ticker symbols for all the major game companies and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's been tough all around.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by HoS_Drakhen

the game industry is one of few that has shown record profits even in these uncertain times.

Is that why every game company's stock is down hugely from just a year ago? Even Activision/Blizzard's stock is a lot lower than it was when the merger/stock split happened. All the game companies that I follow have had a tough year. Check the ticker symbols for all the major game companies and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's been tough all around.

Mark

Mark.. come on now. EVERY stock is down due to the global economy crisis. An environment like this makes all stockholders nervous and prone to panic selling.. it is the nature of the beast. You can't point out game companies stock being down based on Profits.. Tech is holding better than most of the stocks out there currently.

Read their financial statements and tell me how every game company is making record profits (profits, not revenues). The Wii (and things like Wii Fit) is selling like crazy and some titles there are doing very, very well but that's not true across all platforms. For example, PS3 sales were down 7% from 2007 for example and lots of games have sold well but not met expectations.

Oh, and as to the whole panicked-selling thing. If all game companies were making record profits, their stocks would be considered safe bets and people would be running to them instead of running from them as they are running from other stocks. Take Two is down about 70% over the last year and Activision is down like 50%. I'm sorry but if Take Two was making record profits (and beating its forecasts) it does not lose 70% of its value over the last year due to the global crisis. FYI, the DOW is down 40% over the last year as well.

Mark

Source

[Mbj]

Originally Posted by HoS_Drakhen

the game industry is one of few that has shown record profits even in these uncertain times.

Is that why every game company's stock is down hugely from just a year ago? Even Activision/Blizzard's stock is a lot lower than it was when the merger/stock split happened. All the game companies that I follow have had a tough year. Check the ticker symbols for all the major game companies and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's been tough all around.

Mark

Mark.. come on now. EVERY stock is down due to the global economy crisis. An environment like this makes all stockholders nervous and prone to panic selling.. it is the nature of the beast. You can't point out game companies stock being down based on Profits.. Tech is holding better than most of the stocks out there currently.

Read their financial statements and tell me how every game company is making record profits (profits, not revenues). The Wii (and things like Wii Fit) is selling like crazy and some titles there are doing very, very well but that's not true across all platforms. For example, PS3 sales were down 7% from 2007 for example and lots of games have sold well but not met expectations.

Oh, and as to the whole panicked-selling thing. If all game companies were making record profits, their stocks would be considered safe bets and people would be running to them instead of running from them as they are running from other stocks. Take Two is down about 70% over the last year and Activision is down like 50%. I'm sorry but if Take Two was making record profits (and beating its forecasts) it does not lose 70% of its value over the last year due to the global crisis. FYI, the DOW is down 40% over the last year as well.

Mark

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Whoa.. I wasn't the one quoting record profits. I said you can't point to that and say it is the reason stocks are down so much. As you said Dow is down 40%... every sector has taken a massive hit from the economy.

LOL, fair enough. I thought you were also agreeing with the whole record profits thing. I wish that was the case though because good people are losing their jobs throughout the industry and startups are having a real tough time. I want this industry (and not just our part of it) to do continue to grow and to see some of the things that are happening around it is tough. We always bear our share of the burden (if the games industry doesn't make great games, it's our fault) and I think the GI needs to change its ways as well and I hope that this downturn will help/force us to just that.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Methodman-EQ2

Read their financial statements and tell me how every game company is making record profits (profits, not revenues). The Wii (and things like Wii Fit) is selling like crazy and some titles there are doing very, very well but that's not true across all platforms. For example, PS3 sales were down 7% from 2007 for example and lots of games have sold well but not met expectations.

Oh, and as to the whole panicked-selling thing. If all game companies were making record profits, their stocks would be considered safe bets and people would be running to them instead of running from them as they are running from other stocks. Take Two is down about 70% over the last year and Activision is down like 50%. I'm sorry but if Take Two was making record profits (and beating its forecasts) it does not lose 70% of its value over the last year due to the global crisis. FYI, the DOW is down 40% over the last year as well.

Mark
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Yea lots of games haven't sold well but they still crack the top 20 each month, whereas Warhammer can't. The top 20 is relative to the economy. There aren't some games on that list that are immune to the economic problems so whether it is the top 20 in a booming economy or top 20 now it's still the top 20 and warhammer isn't there. That says a lot about the game and the publics interest in it.

FYI, Funcom used the same excuse when they cut their staff. Saying "game is fine it's the economy stupid" Now as I'm sure you are aware they are merging down to a few servers and are one of the biggest failures in mmorpg history. If you don't see the eerie similarities between AoC's release to death path and your release till now, dunno what to tell ya.

You do know that we were one the best selling PC games of the year right? In 3 weeks we'll be able to say just how well we did sell both through retail and digital downloads. We sold fantastically in Sept/Oct (top five game), dropped in Nov, went back up in Dec (but still didn't crack the top 20 for retail sales) and are doing nicely in January.

In terms of AoC, I wouldn't call them one of the biggest failures ever. They launched a game, sold a lot of copies, kept subscribers for a short while and are trying to improve the game. I'd save the "biggest failures ever" line for some of hundreds of MMORPGs that have gone into development and never been released or released and closed right away. Funcom managed to at least release a game and have been working for months on it. Eve Online didn't launch well (brutal sales in the US) and the CCP guys have done a brilliant job of turning that around. I hope that the guys at Funcom, with a much better start than CCP had, can do the same with AoC.

And by the way, I'm not using the economy or Blizzard as an excuse for any layoffs. Unless you consider the CEO of EA saying that EA needs to cut costs as an excuse.

Mark

Source

[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Eire103

"And by the way, I'm not using the economy or Blizzard as an excuse for any layoffs. Unless you consider the CEO of EA saying that EA needs to cut costs as an excuse."

So you are verifying the layoffs took place and the rumor was in fact true?

EA corporate communication has already commented on that, it was in the article.

Mark

Source

[Mbj]

Originally Posted by Distaste

You do know that we were one the best selling PC games of the year right? In 3 weeks we'll be able to say just how well we did sell both through retail and digital downloads. We sold fantastically in Sept/Oct (top five game), dropped in Nov, went back up in Dec (but still didn't crack the top 20 for retail sales) and are doing nicely in January.

In terms of AoC, I wouldn't call them one of the biggest failures ever. They launched a game, sold a lot of copies, kept subscribers for a short while and are trying to improve the game. I'd save the "biggest failures ever" line for some of hundreds of MMORPGs that have gone into development and never been released or released and closed right away. Funcom managed to at least release a game and have been working for months on it. Eve Online didn't launch well (brutal sales in the US) and the CCP guys have done a brilliant job of turning that around. I hope that the guys at Funcom, with a much better start than CCP had, can do the same with AoC.

And by the way, I'm not using the economy or Blizzard as an excuse for any layoffs. Unless you consider the CEO of EA saying that EA needs to cut costs as an excuse.

Mark
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I believe that AoC is also in the top selling PC games this year...maybe even more than WAR sold. Just saying : P.

As for the biggest failure? As a chef the biggest failure I can have is serving something that is inedible. You might be in a bad location, bad economy, and various other reasons that your business isn't doing well but you still have to meet expectations and for a chef that is serving edible food. I have far more respect for a chef that throws away something because it didn't taste right than someone who pushes it out the door to make that extra cash.

So back to game failures. AoC did not meet expectations and thus it is a failure. It is one of the biggest failures because it was one of the biggest to come out in a long time and had high expectations attached to it. A game company that runs out of cash, has internal issues, etc that never produces a live game aren't game designer failures, they aren't pushing a game out even though its bad just to make money. Heck they could have had the best designed game ever but lack of funds or knowledge to market it to investors so that's why they go under.

Tabula Rasa was another big failure but frankly most people didn't have high expectations for that game. It was a big failure but on expectations AoC was the bigger failure. WAR had extremely high expectations as well...just saying : P.

In the world of games it is a far bigger failure to produce a poorly designed game then it is to run out of funds and never produce a game.

I doubt any investors would agree with that. From my vantage point, I would rather see teams actually finish their games, get some return and have a chance to improve them then burning through all the VC/publisher money and have nothing to show for it. I doubt that the guys at studios like Perpetual would agree that they were better off folding before any of their games could be released. Failure to launch a game dooms that studio (unless it is part of a large company) and lots of people lose their jobs. At least with a competent launch and a decent game, you have a fighting chance to survive if you got any of the revenue from the box sales and subscriptions. If you don't launch, you have nothing. Are you saying it would be a bigger failure to spend 100M on a blockbuster-style game, release it and make most of your investment back then it would be to spend that 100M and have nothing to show for it? With the Funcom guys if we say that they sold 800K (the last sell-through numbers that they talked about I think), they at least recouped some (hopefully most) of their development costs and had/have money coming in from subscriptions. If that is the case, there is hope that they can turn things around.

Now, I think that there is a world of difference between the words "disappointment" and "failure" and if you want to call any game a great disappointment, well, I can't argue that since it can be quite subjective. However, failure implies something entire different, especially in the world of making games where a true failure can mean the closing of a studio as happens continually throughout the industry.

Mark

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[Mbj]

Originally Posted by zanglerska

i find it interesting that you brought up EVE and CCP as examples of launches with success...their business plan and approach are completely different than nearly all other games mentioned here. for most of the MMO world there is WOW and the "and also ran" category; most of the games that are called "failures" are in that "and also ran" category. CCP and EVE march to the beat of their own drum...and succeed as a result. everyone else is trying to build a better WOW mousetrap. if you have not noticed...that slot is filled.

a great example of this is Pirates of the Burning Sea. they very much had a CCP approach to their game, and it was on track to be great...then they gave into the WOW thing...avatars, land fighting, less harsh environment...etc...

that game represents failure, and it is clear where the break was. taking WOW and repackaging it or tweaking it...etc...will fail. you won't be better at being WOW then what WOW is.

unfortunately, you seem to only see through the eyes of the investors...while that maybe reality...CCP managed to not have that problem.

Actually no. CCP did the same thing I assume that Funcom is doing and that was not shutting down the game because they had problems at first but rather, continuing to invest in their game. You need money to pay for staff, servers, advertising, bandwidth, etc. and if you can't prove to your investors (unless you're personally rich and funding the game yourself which most of us can't do), that you can make the game profitable. If you don't launch a game, you don't have that opportunity, that was my point. When we launched DAoC, we didn't have EQ numbers and while we were successful, we could have easily taken the approach of "take as much money out of the company as possible, don't reinvest, etc." and we didn't do that. The DAoC team grew wildly (from about 24 developers to many times that amount) and we also invested in Imperator. We grew our sub base for DAoC and within 2 years we were at 2x what we were a few months after DAoC launched. We are taking a similar approach with WAR by continuing to invest in WAR now and we hope to similarly grow the subscription base.

Mark

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