
How Electronic Arts changed the way it worked - Yhippa
http://www.cnet.com/news/how-electronic-arts-stopped-being-the-worst-company-in-america/
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chaostheory
This article reads like a PR piece. The reality is that in order for EA to
truly change, it needs to go private. Until it does, it will always be forced
to make big sacrifices for short term profits to meet quarterly projections
whereas companies like Valve don't have this weakness. They can act for the
long term.

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dragontamer
Not necessarily. I think certain public companies like Costco or Target (which
have been focusing on increasing wages and training opportunities) are doing
very good long-term thinking.

Furthermore, the valuation of Amazon proves that investors are patient (at
least in some industries). Amazon's profits are absolutely awful, but the
stock price continues to rise year-after-year.

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chaostheory
Well retail is different from entertainment where good customer service isn't
enough. If you don't produce hit after consecutive hit that makes analyst
financial projections every quarter your stock plummets. EA actually tried to
do right a few years back by taking a big gamble on two new IPs (Mirror's Edge
and Dead Space) but sales weren't enough and they couldn't beat back pressure
from the street. If it were privately held with the same results, it wouldn't
have had that problem and it could have continued to focus on the long term
(both new IPs were profitable, just not profitable enough for analysts on the
street). The end result is that the EAs of the world hate risk and they just
end up producing sequel after sequel, or buy up a smaller studio with proven
hits. The industry landscape has changed as well. Free to play is a huge force
now and app stores rule with cheaper distribution paired with cheaper prices
for games.

EA also no longer has a charismatic CEO like a Bezos to charm investors. They
lost Trip Hawkins a long time ago.

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dragontamer
Point.

But I think it is important to note that "Shareholders" cannot be generalized.
At best, you can argue that EA's (current) shareholders are short-sighted...
but shareholders "in general" have different opinions and expectations from
company to company.

The huge variation on PE ratios should be proof of that. _No one_ judges a
company purely on last-quarter's profits.

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dragontamer
This was clearly a PR piece. EA has a long way to go before it claws its way
out of the hole it dug itself into.

They've killed Maxis for instance. I don't know a single gamer who "trusts"
Origin (Good Ol' Games Galaxy already seems more successful already).

But as the major Japanese companies implode from self-inflicted wounds...
Konami's loss of Kojima (Metal Gear) and Koji Igarashi(Castlevania)...
Konami's tilt towards mobile, Capcom's tilt to DLC, the loss of Keiji Inafune
(Mega Man)... Square Enix's tilt to Mobile...

EA has some room to rise up as the other companies make similar mistakes. At
very least, EA's mistakes this year are not even close to the worst mistakes
in the industry.

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dlitz
How is EA to work for nowadays? Long ago, I heard that they had a pretty awful
burnout culture, since every year, there's a new crop of novices who want to
make games for a living.

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acconrad
I wondered this too - none of the resolutions mentioned fostering a better
company culture that involved properly valuing their employees, as I would
imagine doing so would lead to better quality games.

~~~
SeanBoocock
I've worked at EA before, during, and after the transition discussed in the
article. The culture at the company has improved during that time, but it
wasn't starting from a poor place, especially relative to the perception of EA
or the video gaming industry generally. Issues like poor work/life balance and
"crunch" culture are openly talked about internally and there is a lot of
momentum around improving it. That extends from the highest levels of
leadership - evident in delaying games to let teams hit a higher quality bar
without killing themselves in the process - to studio/team level managers who
see overtime as a failure. Some EA studios are even recruiting on the basis of
the very positive cultures they've created: [http://careers.ea.com/our-
locations/los-angeles-eala](http://careers.ea.com/our-locations/los-angeles-
eala).

All of that is to say nothing about the many positives of working at EA:
industry leading technology, storied franchises in a diverse array of genres,
internal mobility both geographically and in role, and more. It can be hard to
talk about "EA" as an entity because the individual development studios that
make it up are quite different, but in general I've found it a positive place
to work and one of the best places to have a longer term career in the video
game industry.

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umutisik
i haven't played a lot of EA games in recent years, but I do play Fifa. The
gameplay for FIFA 15 is one if the worst in the history of the franchise. The
good players are like gods who make the defenders do silly things. It's clear
that they put way too much effort into turning the game into Candy Crush with
Fifa Ultimate Team and too little effort into making a good soccer game.

~~~
Vaskivo
I don't understand you comment.

Are you saying that good players are too good for average players to play
against? (if this is good or bad it's another thing). And then you say it's
simplified (Candy Crush).

I'm really curious. I don't play sports games, and don't really understand
what changes in their year-to-year iterations (besides the teams).

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vacri
It's amazing how loud gamers are. The economist points out that the other
contender for worst company was Bank of America.

Just as a comparison, if EA does the nasty, you lose a two-digit number of
dollars, and a few hours of your life. If Bank of America does the nasty, you
lose your home.

I always thought that these 'worst company' awards were for worst to work at -
in which case I understand EA getting the guernsey, as they live and breathe
'staff turnover'. But if it's consumer confidence, what the hell is a company
that shills relatively low-priced entertainment doing in top spot? Their
titles cost less than a room in a cheapish hotel for one night. Crazy. Bread
and circuses, I guess?

