NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Electronic Arts shook up the video gaming field last week with a major price change: Star Wars: The Old Republic, one of the most ambitious and expensive multiplayer games ever made, would soon drop its subscription fees.
The move essentially marks the end of the traditional business model for "massively multiplayer" online games, better known as MMOs. Almost every major publisher has now given in and eliminated its monthly fees -- the genre's bread-and-butter business model for the past 15 years -- relying instead on sales of premium content or virtual items to make money.
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.
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
2024 so far.
Feb ’28 Electronic Arts (EA) 670 (5%)
Feb ’24 PlayStation 900 (8%)
Feb ’24 Vice Media Group Several hundred
Feb ’24 Buzzfeed 16%
Feb ’24 NowThis 26 (50%)
Feb ’24 Paramount Global 800 (3%)
Feb ’24 SiriusXM 160 (3%)
Feb ’24 Snapchat 10%
Jan ’24 TechCrunch 8 + subscription product
Jan ’24 U.K.’s Channel 4 200
Jan ’24 Business Insider 8%
Jan ’24 Microsoft Gaming 1,900
Jan ’24 Riot Games 530
Jan ’24 Sports Illustrated Possibly all
Jan ’24 YouTube 100
Jan ’24 Pitchfork (Conde Nast) Undisclosed
Jan ’24 Universal Music Group Hundreds
Jan ’24 Discord 17%
Jan ’24 NBC News 50-100
Jan ’24 Audible 5%
Jan ’24 Google Hundreds
Jan ’24 Amazon Hundreds
Jan ’24 Duolingo 10%
Jan ’24 VideoAmp 20%
DATA AS OF FEB. 28, 2024
Another long list that skips over UPS cutting 12,000 jobs those workers as we know work without ac low pay and old box trucks but that company had to cut 12k jobs do too loosing billions of dollars year 2 year.
https://edition.cnn.com/202...
The greed and lack of transparency/oversight is disgusting.
Ups are still making bang but not enough for a golden boat fleet.
Remember we all use ups at some time even stuff in our stores this is going to be a huge issue gong forward i know in my area they removed half the state ups stores northern half least population got some 3rd party running packages now from minivans.
@just_looken
UPS is a different story altogether.
They are paying the people doing the actual work/ earning the money more and eliminating management.
You do realize around this time this happens all throughout many industries (not just the game industry), right? It has to do with taxes for these major companies, like tax subsidies for downsizing. You want to know a little secret? Around May or so you’ll see a spike in hiring…
It blows my mind that people are oblivious to corporate workings.
So over 25 huge companies cut jobs every year like this and it only got noticed this time?
@Andrew336
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Google it up if you’re uninformed of how corporations work. Only gamers seem to live in a bubble and when they see things like crunch, acquisitions, and lay-offs they act like this is the only industry it happens to and how shocked they are about it.
Welcome to the real world, kid.
EA CEO Wilson's total compensation was 20 million. Let's take away 19 million (I'm sure he can survive on 1 million.... somehow).
1 million is the salary of an in the chair developer @100,000 for 10 years.
He could earn 1 million a year.
And save the jobs of 15 in the chair devs for A DECADE (plus benefits) with ONE YEAR'S compensation.
Do not worry they will take over 40mill say sorry then get hired by playstation or xbox
I heard Japan does it better, they do layoffs like what's happening with companies in the west. The higher ups also being agreeing to to lower there own salary. These MFs like jim and Phil isnt gonna do that they want that $
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.
Square Enix needs to drop its subscription too for both Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XIV. I play by my own time.
Because Pay-to-win models make a crap ton of money. Might as well make extra money with people buying the game and subscribing for a while, then go make bank and pure profit off pay-to-win fee's, I mean free-to-play models.....
It really wasn't a surprise to most gamers that follow the mmo market. Also F2P is not the same as pay to win and whoever says that doesn't know crap.
I like paying for content so much more than paying per month, when I pay $15 for a month of MMO I feel like I should only play that game in the month, and I just hate that, I have other games I want to play.
Ugh, good thing I didn't bother with the game. There is a distinct lack of quality wen comparing games that are "Free to Play" and monthly subscription.
Yes, it sounds great in theory, and I can see why publishers love it. But the truth is, most cases, games become less supported and content ends becoming "Pay to Win"
It suits shallow, casual, pop in and go MMOs, which, is actually the entire market right now... Can't wait for a deep, content heavy MMO to come out again.