By April of next year EA expects to have cut some 1500 employees, saving themselves some $100 Million annually. [more info] It was confirmed yesterday that Pandemic will be shuttered entirely. [more info] Also cut is the number of games that will be released in the coming years and despite recent assurances the company will be moving away from original IP which has now been deemed "risky". [more info] Watch out Playfish. Being new to the fold doesn't mean you're safe.

I both love and hate zapper comics. They're simple. For the most part they're straight forward. They illustrate a concept. But all of that comes at the cost of jobs and studios. It's painful and kind of makes me feel bad.

Anywho... best of luck to the folks at Pandemic that won't be getting "consolidated" back into the company somewhere.

I really don't like this line from the article.

"...the firm's promise to cut back on risky new IP during a tough economic period"

This says to me, "We aren't going to try any new ideas but don't worry, we already have four new madden titles lined up!"

I'll agree.

sucks that the material has to be about people being out of a job. but all you do is report the news , it's not like you put them out of a job.

To me this indicates that Warhammer Online must be profitable still. If they were cutting jobs then my impression was that Mythic was perhaps "the place to go", at least those jobs involved with Warhammer.

Sad to see jobs go, but that's today's job market.

Surprised that Maxis have jobs being cut, I thought Sims makes them immune.

I find it kind of interesting that if you look back over the last 10 years or so in gaming, specifically towards stories involving studios being shut down, games being closed off, people making those games fired, etc ... that a lot of times you see EA in the story somewhere.

Just saying...

~r~

/still mad at EA for shutting down MCO ... ok I said it.

Hey all,

First time poster. I've notcied that Shadowbane fly is still unzapped, but Shadowbane was shutdown back in July? Maybe he should be a Fly skeleton from now on :-)

Cheers,

Leibolmai

the wild part is EA is makeing a shitload of money every month

the problem is that they are spending a Shitload *1.25 every month.

from there most recent report

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GAAP net revenue for the third quarter was $1.65 billion, up $151 million as compared with $1.50 billion for the prior year. During the quarter, EA had a net deferral of $88 million of net revenue related to certain online-enabled packaged goods games and digital content as compared with $231 million in the prior year.

Non-GAAP net revenue was $1.74 billion, as compared with $1.73 billion for the prior year. Sales were driven by FIFA 09, Rock Band™ 2, Need for Speed™ Undercover, Rock Band, Left 4 Dead™, Dead Space™, Madden NFL 09, LITTLEST PET SHOP, NBA Live 09 and Mirror’s Edge™.
****


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GAAP net loss for the quarter was $641 million, including certain charges, as compared with a net loss of $33 million for the prior year. Diluted loss per share was $2.00 as compared with diluted loss per share of $0.10 for the prior year.

****

Translation, SIMS 3 is not the golden child we thought it would be, We did not make anywhere near what we thought we would with micro tranactions for SIMS 3 and other game that we thought we would and we are perpetualy on the hook for digitial downloads we havent delivered yet in the form of upcomeing expansions.

in short we made 1.7 Billion while manageing to "spend" around 2.4 billion including the floating debt we have been running with for a while now. but look on the bright side our good games are getting a B grade!

They seem to have this habit of buying companies, then laying off their own employees. After the purchase of Bioware, a friend of mine was considered to be making too much money at EA Red Shores so he was let go.

Is Tiberian Vin Diesels studio? Or am I thinking of something else?

Omg, i cant believe Shadowbane and Horizons are still alive, haven't seen those two guys in ages...
have to say, i missed the old zapper, it brings back so many memories, thx for the flashback woody xD