"With the current generation of consoles approaching their 5-6 year mark, it is no surprise to hear talks of the upcoming generation of consoles. While the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 still have potential that has yet to be seen, just look at Uncharted 3 and Gears of War 3, developers are always aching to work on the latest and greatest hardware, except Electronic Arts."
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.
yeah they do so, but eventually will be among the first to publsih games for the platforms. nothing new.
This needs to be edited to not confuse some people. Frank Gibeau is not the "President of EA" he's pres of a division/subsidiary of EA.
Also the context is more of Gibeau's 'at what cost?' to consumers, distributers, retailers, developers and publishers like EA. Just marketing the next generation and providing better games and services will be expensive at first. Take it like the failure of 3DS, and potential failures of Wii U (likely because what audience are they aiming at? the iPhone/iPad audience that get new ones 2-3 times faster?) and PSVita (less likely) will be ample forecast of the fallout of launching 8th generation consoles too close together without games and services to make them more attractive than what we already have. Which is why he goes on to mention the things people have, and some people flat out ignore. Some console people are content because PC doesn't have much that console and mobile doesn't get too.
Making current games that are like Cinderella's Elephantine foot in a glass slipper has caused several high profile game development studios to be closed, or absorbed, because they couldn't recoup their cost. Example, Team Bondi. Asking to move to a new and untested and initially niche console isn't going to happen with AAA titles leading the charge, and it won't be cheap on consumers who remain cash strapped. All the hardware manufacturers couldn't make enough of new units of 8th generation consoles to float their respective new platforms for the first few years anyway. Billions would be lost trying to not just create new consoles, and services (like a proper online service from Nintendo), but have them competing with each other essentially for the same games and a selection of exclusives. At least Sony has a fair stable of studios that could make exclusives, meaning they can hang back and wait and launch PS4 with a good number of exclusives while milking PSVita and PS3 for all they are worth.
So why not leverage PC in the meantime? Enter Origin, which lacks support and services. EA can do much more to put all of its best franchises on Origin, and more than that, meet [Microsoft and Apple]+Valve (and even Google) half way by putting more games out on digital stores. Like the Sims. Instead of putting it on facebook they could have launched it as a free to play game powered by microtransactions (so exactly like the facebook game).
They earn money now (if possible in such a competitive cut-throat market where very little is making profit) in preparation for the Epic fight that will be the 8th generation of home entertainment consoles. Nintendo already has a beach head, and MS and Sony have both mentioned they are sketching out their battle plans (very likely they will fall short again of what developers will need to support another 5 years of compelling games and services). What they don't need is another ball and chain. No one intends to lose money the way they have in the past and they certainly want the next generation to have expansion built in, not just in 'firmware updates'.
But this article, and the other one, and my gametrailers.com blog all ask the most obvious question, can EA fund all of its studio's for 8th generation launch titles? with Crysis 3, something new from Bioware in the Dragon Age line, a Mass Effect spin-off or cross platform MMO, another Battlefield, another NFS and Burnout.. and a dozen casual titles. Or can they spend another couple of years combing the dregs of X360 and PS3 for profit. The possibility of dominating launch titles is there so questioning necessity and costs seems silly.
exactly my thoughts
I like the comment on the source.
Add USB ram expansions N64-style
New console?.. We're in the middle of economic crisis, why would we want another console?.. It is indeed very expensive to develop a new hardware it'll cost a lot of billions..