Reports yesterday that Call of Duty co-creator and Respawn co-founder Jason West has left the studio have been confirmed. West, who co-founded Respawn following his sacking from Infinity Ward amidst a barrage of lawsuits, has left the studio due to family issues. The news was confirmed by Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella, who today posted a statement on the company’s official website.
“Jason has left Respawn to take care of some family issues,” Zampella wrote. “We have worked together on some amazing accomplishments over the years, starting with an early Segasoft project that never shipped. It is sad to see things come to an end, but there are times when change is best for growth, both personally and professionally.
“I wish Jason the best and send my best wishes to his family. Respawn continues to amaze me, the team here is resilient and talented. E3 will be therapeutic for us, as we finally get to start showing our work again. I know the team was excited about the response we got from just admitting we were going to attend.”
West and Zampella were sacked from Infinity Ward and Activision in 2010. The pair sued Activision, Activision sued EA – who the duo were accused of secretly plotting deals with – and eventually the dispute was settled out of court confidentially. Respawn is expected to showcase a new game for EA at E3 this year.
Respawn Entertainment faces major layoffs as part of an industry-wide trend, impacting key titles like Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi.
"Game Industry Faces Changes"
So true we went from dozens and dozens of game makers in the ps1-3 era with so many playstation games to this crap gen.
Game companies went from millionaires to billionaires but still act like they are homeless if a game makes a few million its a disaster of apocalyptic proportions now.
I fired up the ps5 the other day say dragons dogma 2 for $93 cad regular version just a yep sure do not even get the full game $33 more than the last game new a version that was full but i paid like $13 for the first game.
I can see gta 6 getting a ubisoft chart of version's in which it will cost you hundreds to get the full experience.
Greed greed greed
They act like they are losing money.
One year they make 40 million
Next year they make 37 million
Instead of looking at that and saying “We made 37 million year 2”, they look at it and say “We lost 3 million year 2. Time to make layoffs”
Greedy Companies & Shareholders
exactly except they are basing it off of covid days.
They are making billions yet cry when it close to the million mark
Embracer had a 4% growth yes mass layoffs and all that but 12 billion? so what they could not survive on 8ish billion if they kept all those jobs.
https://embracer.com/releas...
I mean thats business isnt it, share holders get less on their return than last year. New investers see a downward trend. Projections are cut.
Its rainbows and sunshine to celebrate the positives (yay 37mil), but if you took 7.5% drop of youre income next year would you be thankful or look to find a positive?
Not saying its cool, just saying thats life, in every industry.
Gaming industry has grown so much and so fast that way too many suits got involved who don’t understand the business. Unless a company is private geeed will be next level. It’s not longer about hobby and developers being gamers themselves
Now it’s about AAA games costing $200-$300 million. We went from a lot of mid size developers and publishers to now having AAA or indies
As always, not seeing any VP+ departures or sacrifices (aka no bonus this year). Great deal...
It’s clear to me that these industry wide layoffs are because the game makers expect AI to do this work for less. Companies that are not struggling and not seeing lower sales are laying people off. It’s not market driven.
This! I've said this before. All these mass layoffs and in droves too. All to do with AI. They won't admit it. But it's cutting them costs. I mean even for a simple thing such as art they're taking over.
SImple greed. When Share holders interest come first than company goals is when everything starts going south. Companies forget what they started business for... to do games, to make movies, to build hardware. to bring something to the endo consumer. Sure, profit is to be had in exchange, after all it is a business. No one is denying that.
But when profit becomes the end all be all... this starts to happen. Companies cut costs, they look at less than stellar earnings as total failure, they fire people, they lower the quality of their product. And, in the long run, they hurt their reputation.
I guess it´s OK as long as shareholders made their projected earnings, what do they care for long term health of their investments... right?
The lack of long erm vision is nerve wrecking. This tendenc of maximizing revenue above all and shareholder worship is literally killing entire industries.
Games, movies... at the end of the day the worst that will happen is people say: this game sucks. And sadly, people get fired. But damn... plane and car manufacturers do the same with far more dire end results... cost cutting and cutthroat business practices where they have no place.
Today Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson provided a look into his ideas for the use of generative AI in the company's development processes.
I wonder what the next buzz word they'll slap in front of AI to make it sound exciting next? "Generative" as if it's creating its own content. Lol.
i have a better idea .. why the whole exec team doesn't get replaced by chat bots ?
Though i agree the ai thing is already in other forms of media there have been ai translations/scripts/voice over and even full ai commercials aired on tv. Ubisoft has created a ai game creator story/vo/music except the building of the game
The new unreal engine has auto terrain creation tools
In the world of greed in which it is winning without any major blow back ai is our future.
everyone want's biden dead on the mic or a criminal instead of a woman and now we are getting ai everything because no one will stop watching/playing ai created media.
Exactly EA are just pure evil. When they are beating Bank of America to be voted the worst company to work for that’s saying a lot
Good thing I don’t buy their games day one and wait for deep deep sale years after launch (the select few games I am actually interested in)
Gaming is making so much money yet the greed of these companies is never ending
CEO’s and people on board making millions yet cutting jobs to those who are actually making the products
EA is still a shady shitty company even with or without the help of Skynet. All they will use AI for is new ways to milk loot boxes and come up with the same sports title with a different year on the label. They are one company I truly do hate with a passion. They single handedly ruined some great franchise with their death touch. ME, Dead Space, Alice Returns, Dante's Inferno.
All that is already been happening
https://www.gamespot.com/ar...
https://mobilesyrup.com/201...
https://www.ign.com/article...
https://www.spglobal.com/ma...
EA layoffs followed by 'Generative AI to Drive Monetization'
I knew it. Wonder what AI salary looks like? Nothing.
I having a feeling that most of the layoffs in the industry are based on the idea that AI will do the same job for less.
Very likely, yes.
Made worse by the fact that the execs aren't changing their compensations.
My deepest fear at this point is that we are now in the capitalism endgame.
At this point, we really should just burn AI to the ground. Executives cannot be trusted to do the right thing.
How are those people expected to support families if everything gets automated?
And take away creativity, and people's jobs as we've been seeing. Got it.
No thanks. I want my games created by people, not AI.
Exactly. If or when games start becoming more AI than people, im done with gaming. AI and companies like EA can suck donkey d***k.
Though i agree remember this is no ps3/360 era were we got up to 3 games in one generation from on developer like gears/halo/bioware/sony/ms
The people today are pro esg/sweet baby for the most part AAA gaming is imploding right now.
We should be stepping back re evaluate everything as a whole this year xmen 97 written/directed by a woman that is nuts and its also being made by a group reshaping bodies to be less sexual like wtf. A dam famous cartoon from the 90's is being rebuilt with millions spent to be worse in everyway.
Gaming/movies/tv shows made today are worse than what we had 7years ago ai won't change this but that ai is also being made by these groups so either way we are screwed.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Don't be of afraid of women. Sexy characters in games and movies still exist. Got my Stellar Blade on preorder!!! Everything all the time doesn't need to be sexual...that's stupid, childish and dull.
EA doesn't want to lose their title of worst gaming company ever, always trying their best to remain the champs!
What's sad is that they have so much potential to be a decent publisher.
SSX Tricky / SSX 3
Def Jam Vendetta / Fight for New York
NBA Street
NFL Steet
Mirror's Edge
Bad Company
Burnout 3 / 4 / 5
Remember when EA used to be awesome? It's all over with now. Unpolished, if not out-right broken games these days. Endless monetization and gambling in their sports games, and let's not forget wasting hours of your life trying to unlock characters or equipment using "surprise boxes!"
Gareth, Justin, and JoeyZ look at Layoff news for EA and Sony and reasons behind the downturn in the industry and more.
Hope all is well with him and his family.
Crazy how the industry is changing (good or bad) everyday.
In the same time period (since E3), they have also lost 2 out of their 4 design leads (including their multiplayer design lead), the Lead Software engineer, and the best multiplayer map designer Alex Roycewicz (google his name to see list of maps he created, pretty much all the great ones).
Respawn is limping to the finish line with this game
His wife/girlfriend probably left him for making way less than what he was making with COD. He's like.. sorry honey, but EA stole us, and promised us more money!
Who cares.