In this interview we talk with the founder of EA, 3DO and Digital Chocolate about the console industry's continuing decline, the tablet computing explosion, Kickstarter projects and much more.
Today Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson provided a look into his ideas for the use of generative AI in the company's development processes.
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.
EA layoffs followed by 'Generative AI to Drive Monetization'
I knew it. Wonder what AI salary looks like? Nothing.
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.
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.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson writes: "In this time of change, we expect these decisions to impact approximately 5 percent of our workforce. I understand this will create uncertainty and be challenging for many who have worked with such dedication and passion and have made important contributions to our company. While not every team will be impacted, this is the hardest part of these changes, and we have deeply considered every option to try and limit impacts to our teams. Our primary goal is to provide team members with opportunities to find new roles and paths to transition onto other projects. Where that’s not possible, we will support and work with each colleague with the utmost attention, care, and respect. Communicating these impacts has already begun and will be largely completed by early next quarter."
All the big ones doing the same stuff. Terrible. I just hope that all these people are able to get a new job as soon as possible, God know that it is horrible to be left jobless when you have your kids or your parents depending on your financial help
The point I feel is problematic about all of this is that focusing on Owned Ip means more sequels, remasters and more of what was selling last year.
@DragonAirFight I completely hear you with the 'sour grapes' comments. There have been a lot of crappy people in the industry that have bashed the business that gave them a name in the first place. I can see these publishers/developers bashing the games media, but to say the "industry is garbage" because the industry outgrew the needs of the publisher/developer is, to your point, childish name calling.
Now, after interviewing Trip, he didn't say that the console industry is crap but he did say that console gaming has gone from a $50B industry to a $15B in just three years. That could be due to the age of the consoles, but he's saying that the console model has changed entirely and that he doesn't believe "the big three" have what it takes financially to re-engineer themselves.
He's definitely opinionated, but he can also back everything he says with a metric-ton of experience. Take a listen to the episode (if you want to fast forward past our banter at the beginning, he starts talking at the 15 minute mark) and let us know what you think after listening to the show.
@DragonAirFight Definitely listen to the show and hear him out. It's only 20 minutes, but he reveals a great deal about where his thoughts, and that statement, comes from.
@Niveous Thank you so much for listening to the show and for hearing him out. I think what is funny is that he's often chastised for his opinions by the gaming press but he did graduate Harvard (Magna Cum Laude) and then started up EA and 3DO.
No matter what people will say about the 3DO, that system was WAAAAAAAY ahead of its time from a business perspective. Sure the system launched at a prohibitive price point ($599) but the reason that was so high was that 3DO collected royalties on each console sold and on each game manufactured. To game publishers, that low $3 royalty rate per game was a better deal than the higher royalties paid to Nintendo and Sega (which could be up to, and over, $20 per cart) when making games for their consoles. It wasn't a success, but it certainly had the developers' costs in mind. A very similar strategy to what Microsoft chose to promote with their Xbox launch in 2001.
Is the man arrogant? Maybe. Is he right most of the time? AbsoLUTELY! No matter what people say, it was great to have him on the show and he ranks up there with Eric Patterson and Tim Schafer as one of our favorite interviews we've ever done.
Thanks so much for listening and for commenting here on N4G @Niveous!