Massive EA layoff, Mythic reduced by almost half. Effect on UO?

Jeez, I go on vacation for a week and find the world is ending with everyone pointing fingers again.

Perhaps waiting for official announcements would work better? Ah but then no one would be able to make their pronouncements and portends of doom.

Actually, there are no indications that they are focusing on console games. Publishers are shifting to strategies where they release cross platform games that can be played on xBox, PS and PC. This allows them reach the most players with a game. The projects they chopped are unreleased and unannounced games which do not include the 3 MMOs (UO/DoAC/WH).

Revenues from their MMOs have in fact have gone up compared to last year.

If anything, I think these are the projects that are being cut. No one is laughing at us.

Harlequin you are saying that noone from mythic was fired ?

Jhym I find you insulting.

Who can we be pointing fingers at ? We don't even know who makes these decisions anyways !

Go look at EAs webpage...

DO YOU SEE ALL THOSE KILLER GAMES ?!!

It's not doom, it's about manipulation, stop trying to change the subject. We know some have been fired, and we know they all are silent right now.

Let's not get on the four horses yet, it's just a game after all, right ?

Wow.

This thread is still going?

Ahhh Chicken Little..........

Dammit JIM! I'm a doctor, not some mythological Greek Titan!

No, I am not saying that no one at Mythic will be fired. I believe the projection is that 40% of folks at Mythic will be laid off. But we don't know who will be affected or how it affects UO. Though QA would likely be affected. Possibly customer support as well.

The layoffs are throughout EA globally. The MMO titles are getting their share, but are not getting the brunt of it. In fact, if you consider that entire project teams were laid off, the MMO team is affected less than others.



What I am saying is that UO, DoAC, WH isn't and won't suffer the fate of those non MMO projects that have been totally scrapped and had their entire team made redundant.

Based on the increased revenues from their MMO titles, if anything, I think they would consider cutting the MMO titles last. Dumb mgmt decisions aside.

And no one doing console game development at EA is laughing at UO, least of all, the folks who had their non mmo projects scrapped.

The only real threat to UO is EA behaving irrationally. There's every sign that it's making money. EA sometimes behaves like a child, though, and one day the child will may throw a fit and cancel UO.

If this happens, people will say "see, I predicted the end of this game and I was right."

But the reality is that it'll just have been a coincidence.

-Galen's player

My thoughts are with those who have been given pink slips!

On a side note... maybe BioWare will hide the UO team in a corner of their department and give them shelter. ;p Seeing how massive a success Dragon Age was, I doubt BioWare will ever be looked at by EA in a negative way. :x

My heartfelt condolences to those who lost their jobs in this unfortunate situation. It has been a rough year for many people and it's not ending yet sadly.

EA better leave the UO Team alone or face the wrath of it's angry customer base. *sharpens Pitchfork*



Rick at Electronic Arts



Perhaps they could spend a little less on the amenities and keep more people.

Ending my effort to read every post here, I also feel bad for our Stratics mods, as they likely can't use the ignore list feature.

I agree.

I feel so bad for everyone that was laid off. And I pray they find another job very quickly.

One of the LS EMs posted about an event on Saturday yesterday, so i'm taking that as a "they survived" as its kind of hard to host events if you've been fired.

As long as people are happy with chicken and rooster content, UO will be fine.

Event Moderators are still around. Atlantic has new events listed throughout November.

They aren't going to come on and announce who was laid off. Frankly, it's none of our business. I wish those people who are laid off a fruitful job search and larger salary!

I think it is our business. This dev team is the best we've had in years. There are a couple of them that really get this game. I suffered through enough crap expansions and shallow content to realize just how good things are now.

I think the same... if just one of them gets fired, I'm going away with them.

It's not like I was welcome in your "community" anyways, or that anyone cared about me.

If anyone wants a house by vesper beach, it's a small workshop... send me an IM (atlantic in case this post has been removed without notice too). I'll be glad to make a happy camper.

It seems Sakkarah is still on board also, just ran accross an invisible someone cleaning up sparklies in Hythloth. That's twice now I've run accross her cleaning up Brittainia, she's making quite the personal effort!

Personally, I welcome shard mergers. It would be nice to have more people to play with/against.

Uggh, buying Playfish? Wtf is that, looked it up. Looks like a real winner, /sarcasm. They should have made UO 2 instead of WAR, maybe then they wouldn't be laying off so many people. Not very bright, all that money and they keep investing in retardedness, lol.

EA pretty much has a reputation for systematically destroying the studios it purchases. UO is very lucky to have survived in spite of this.

lmao

Good post Grey.

Oh and Ahuaey, you sound like you could work with a certain "news" station I will leave unnamed. Geez, just calm down...

Did they fire their good routers or whatever too? Is that why the ping is so crappy?

I think they ran outta canned air and tried to hose down the server again.

EA is pulling a Circuit City. They are going to rehire some of the positions back. Of course this means those people don't get paid as much as the ones who worked there for a long time.

http://kotaku.com/5403589/ea-will-hire-back-some-positions-it-cut

All EA cares about is the bottom line. This is why a company should avoid being purchased by these mega-gaming companies whenever possible. Every studio they have purchased gets tossed aside as soon as they are no longer deemed necessary or have a big failure. Origin, Maxis, Mythic, Westwood Studios......all dead probably from decisions made by EA.

"We will be hiring back positions in low-cost locations to maintain capacity" is usually a euphemism for "we've moved the jobs to India"

I don't think that is the case. They specifically said rehire and "some locations". If it was going to be outsourcing they would have said so.

*goes back to reading the tea leaves*

And this
http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissay

Soooo.... it says past so does that mean they are gone

Draconi is gone? This is terrible =[

I was wondering a bit about Sakkarah being specifically mentioned in the producer letter. Perhaps she is now the lead designer for UO.

Well being an american to me re-hire means to hire someone back that worked for you before and quit or got fired or layed off.

Suckage!

More than anyone in a looooong time Drac "got" Ultima. Its supposition for now, I hope, but if true, well, our advancing subscription numbers which were so proudly touted in Calvin's letter are in large part to the reintroduction of a cohesive ultima-verse feel that took years to build up.

More valuable than any owned asset is the person that makes them profitable.

This is worse than terrible! Draconi is the one person there that seemed to really care about the players. After Cal's terrific "carebear" post, and mentioning bringing UO back into the "wild wild west", it was Draconi and only Draconi on the boards trying to stem the bonfires that Cal had started. He was truly worried about containing the damage that Cal had done, and was trying to give the players assurances that what Cal had said, wasn't going to happen.

This is just the worse news I've heard in a while. I hope there are some developers left that have the dedication and care to the players that he had.

Draconi is such a class act. I always got the feeling he really cared about UO and the players. I will miss his creativity and dedication to the game. This is such a huge loss for us. I wish him the best and hope he bounces back quickly.

If this is true, then at least be thankful that it is Sakkarah who is taking his place. She is the dev who has impressed me most of all in recent times. Just reading her blog tells you she has her head screwed on correctly, and remember that she was a UO player for around ten years before joining the team.

Marked, thank you. It might very well be a saving grace. But does she have copies of all the ooooooold Ultima games. Maybe some can be dug up.

That is what I meant when I said they are pulling a Circuit City. That store fired all their highest paid staff and hired minimum wage replacements.

JC for what it’s worth, I was in management with Circuit until a little over three years ago when we set out on our own. When the layoffs you refer to did occur, I knew many of the folks who were both implementing the decision and those affected. In that case specifically, salary levels had become rather high relative to production for quite a few of the “old timers,” $24 an hour by comparison to other competitors paying $8.50 hourly by default established a difficult margin to overcome in a very competitive and margin decreasing market. The error IMO was that these great folks were “let go” without individual review or the ability to renegotiate. Many BTW were rehired, as being discussed here. What ultimately killed Circuit was not this action, it was recoverable as this will be for EA and Mythic, provided the right decisions are made. Circuit went under due to very poor leadership and decision making, coupled with a fair dose of the personal greed we all see today in many businesses and institutions. Circuit released the last of its original executive leadership almost four years back, and brought in as a CEO the fella who had previously been Best Buy’s COO, and had been passed over by the latter for the CEO slot there. Should have told the Circuit BOD something, but no. Under this man’s guidance, the company lost its direction and identity. It led those on the floors to have no “niche,” and become sandwiched between aggressive commission based competitors and larger retailers with top of mind recognition advantages. Once finally realized at the senior levels and some course correction had begun, it was too late. And by a very small degree actually. Truth be told in business history, had Circuits “Black Friday” sells been equal to their first day’s liquidation sells (prices were much lower on the previous day), the company would still be around today.

I don’t want to see Draconi go either. I don’t want to see any of our team go unless it’s voluntary with an eye toward a better opportunity. I honestly see all of them as part of our UO family, even when something they do or don’t do irks me. If Sakkarah assumes a position of greater responsibility, there will be no loss of direction or identity. And she isn’t the only one currently there who fills this bill. So as an institution in and of itself, UO will be fine, despite the personal sense of loss along the way.

I'm not saying Circuit City failed because of the decision to fire and rehire staff, I'm saying EA pulled the same thing here. It isn't right to replace someone who has worked hard for you with someone at minimum wage. Draconi produced one of the best UO expansions in a long time and how does EA reward him?

"Thanks for making us millions upon millions of dollars, working 12-16 hour days for 2 months. Here is your pink slip."

EA even announces they are firing an entire development team before they even finish a game sometimes. They just care about the bottom line.

You have to know going into EA, this is standard operating procedure for EA. Every 2 years, they fire the more experienced people and replace with the cheaper newbie.

Content is king. If new content can be rolled out every month, UO will be able to retain and increase subscribers. The reason that subscribers dropped so much in the last couple of years is that there were LONG periods of inactivity.

I am curious what is the role and has been the role of Shanghai EA in UO?

*tries to think of something witty and upbeat*
*sighs*

You act like it is a horrible thing to pay a person $24 an hour. The high up managers make $100s an hour and want to pay the people who actually sell the items $9 bucks an hour.

Greed is a terrible thing.

I also liked Draconi's enthusiam for the game. He was great at last years Halloween event.

It's not terrible... it's total bull****. I am well beyond pissed about this if it is true. This person has to be the best thing that has ever happened to this game. Part of me hopes he is messing with us and just hasn't completely finished updating his info.

If he WAS let go however... **** you EA.