During the question and answer session following his DICE summit address earlier this week, EA CEO John Riccitiello informed those in attendance that he believes the recession to be a "blessing", that the economic downturn will force "the riffraff" out of business.
Source: 1Up.Com [ more info ]

If you squint really hard and cross your eyes just so... you might halfway see his point. I just can't shake how insensitive it is. It's not just "riffraff" cutting jobs and closing their doors. EA themselves have cut over 1000 employees and closed/consolidated 9 locations. I guess they don't count.

Alright, so maybe I'm being too protective to embrace Riccitiello's point. But I don't care how much "fat" needs to be cut from the industry. Right now just isn't a good time to say the recession is a blessing on any level.

But Woody, you have to trust him. He personally reviewed the employment records of the employees EA fired and gave them pre-exit interviews. And they were all jerks, every last one of them.

Recessions always end up helping people who have money in the long run. Hell, that's how the Kennedy's made a lot of their money: bought up a lot of cheap land during the Recession and resold it after things got better.

"Recession" is little more than a codeword for "opportunity" for the people who have the resources. They don't see what happens to the people behind the numbers.

I think he was referencing his competitors when he said "riff-raff." You know, those upstart game companies that dare to do things like "innovate." If gamers are expecting new and exciting games, how is a company that pops out 5-trillion Sims and EASports titles supposed to compete against that riff-raff?

Just my 2c.

Yea, I realy cant agree the recession is a blessing on any level. It might seem funy to us since we arent the ones getting laid off, but it cant be funny to the poor bastards who did. In any case, i agree with Austhus, the "riff-raff" could just be the competition from smaller gaming companies that cant keep up.

What [Austhus] said...

The problem is that a lot of good games come from smaller developers who would go out of business, while boring old EA-like behemoths continue to put out s***.

The truth is, companies use recession and fear to get rid of employees which don't quite make the cut, cost too much for too little returns, etc.

While the "riff raff" companies will go out of business, EA will take the opportunity to "downsize" and "restructure". Which makes sense from a shareholder perspective. What better reason to let employees they'd rather not have other than a recession?

Considering I have a few friends that have been part of the EA layoffs and EA has always done fancy footwork with 'temp' employees, I think the Riffraff is probably Him.

Oh, and to be fair, I used to date a developer who worked for one of their small fry competitors.

At the same time, though, that was the attitude of a lot of established tech businesses when the dot com bubble burst. They were smugly telling themselves it was the 'riffraff' that was getting their comeuppance and how much better that made them.

Is this guy on the Wall of Douchebags yet? If not I would like to formally nominate him as a candidate.

I think insensitive is too nice of a word. I second the nomination for an addition to the 'Wall of Douche bags', if he isn't on it already.

I'd like to third the nomination for an addition to the 'Wall of Douche bags'!!

And state the guy is a total ASSHAT!!!!