Massive EA layoff, Mythic reduced by almost half. Effect on UO?

[FishinFool]

Oh let me reiterate.
When jobs are cut, new people get hired as needed at a lower cost. It sucks. Ive been there.

Pretty shocking how many people here fail to grasp some pretty simple economic realities.

A large corporation, such as EA - an employee who is pulling in about 50k yearly paycheck costs roughly 2x that in benefits contributions and taxes.

All the servers, routers, data circuits and so on are not one time purchases. There is ongoing maintenance, evergreening, facilities charges and utilities. Then there is the cost of the people who actually do that work. Different companies handle these things differently, we do it as chargebacks to the business. Monthly charges for CPU allocations, bandwidth, differing tiers of data storage. Just because you purchase a single server in 2005 for 8k does not mean that's the end of it.

Then of course, there are taxes. You really have your head in the clouds if you think this game even gets the time of day in any planning sessions.

 

[Uriah Heep]

You really have your head in the clouds if you think this game even gets the time of day in any planning sessions.

The secret to our longevity??? They don't realize we still exist!!!

 

[FishinFool]

The secret to our longevity??? They don't realize we still exist!!!

That only lasts for so long Sooner or later they pick up your vapor trail.

 

[Viquire]

The secret to our longevity??? They don't realize we still exist!!!

That only lasts for so long Sooner or later they pick up your vapor trail.

That largely depends on what you have been eating.

 

[Arcus]

"Change you can believe in"


This kind of news isnt shocking its just the tip of the iceberg.

Don't blame me I voted for the American.

...cause Hawaii is part of Japan.....

So if UO closes you blame Obama? Beam me up Scotty....Ive seen everything.

 

[jbfortune]

What a shame.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Why would you thank an entity whom has no observed influence on the world ?

There even wasn't such a thing as GM God...

I hope... haha

 

[kelmo]

Get back on topic or be banned. We have no need of the nonsense.

 

[Viquire]

Personally I am super thankful to see all the titles survived. I wish we had some response from EA sources saying these are the personnel changes and our schedule has not changed for the time remaining in 09.

Has anyone seen anything posted from Bioware? I'm thinking about our friend Patrick.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Be banned.

This is totally on topic.

Like more than so.

If it was more on topic it'd hurt, cause unike music, when it hits you you can feel pain.

If Chrissay was fired it would make my communication much easier, because I'd have an example. Well I have one and she was called Kanmare, but thats another story for different reasons.

Anyways, I know you're trying to get me going here so I'll just shut up.

 

[Amren]

This post needs some corrections...

First - I'd be VERY surprised if the active subscription base was any more than 50k TOPS. Even with Japan shards. In the US GL/ATL/PAC are fairly well populated - the rest are ghost towns. No more than 300-400 ppl logged in all day.

Second - It might be $1m REVENUE per month - definitely not profit.

Lets assume - 15 developers at an average cost of 100k/year = 125k fully loaded - Thats $2.25m/year.

Lets assume - 10 QA people at $60k - 80k fully loaded - 800k.

Lets assume - 5 graphic artists at $80k average- 100k fully loaded - 500k

Lets assume GM staff, Game Designers, Game Lead - another $1m.

There are $4.5m in costs right there. It is probably higher. Don't forget we had 80 names on pumpkins this year. If you assume average fully loaded cost of $100k - thats 8m in human costs.


Now lets factor in corporate allocations for office space, telephones etc.

Then you have to factor in servers and network costs. Yes, many of the servers might be paid for and fully depreciated - but do you think their network traffic and connections are free?

What about the IT staff to maintain the servers? Who do you think is doing the backups? Restores? etc. There is a cost to that.

Reduce your $1m/month to something more like $750k/month and now you are talking $10m for the year tops.

Once you take out allocations, personel and hardware costs - it would not surprise me if it were a breakeven before they start sellng 'add ons' like player transfer tokens and the expansion.

Assume 20k people took the expansion at $30 and that is a $600k boost this year.


It is cute though how you call it $1m in profit and assume everyone there is working for free and/or the game 'runs itself' with free computers, network connections and support.

Well I was just trying to be optimistic. I am honestly bored with UO (even with SA) so in reality I don't think I care one way or another if the game survives. It's just something I log on to when WoW is down for it's weekly maintenance.

We don't really know how many people keep this game going. I don't think it takes more then 5 people to staff IT positions 24/7. This is not a mission-critical environment.

 

[kelmo]

Be banned.

This is totally on topic.

Like more than so.

If it was more on topic it'd hurt, cause unike music, when it hits you you can feel pain.

If Chrissay was fired it would make my communication much easier, because I'd have an example. Well I have one and she was called Kanmare, but thats another story for different reasons.

Anyways, I know you're trying to get me going here so I'll just shut up.

You at least got the shut up part right. Stay on topic.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Well I was just trying to be optimistic. I am honestly bored with UO (even with SA) so in reality I don't think I care one way or another if the game survives. It's just something I log on to when WoW is down for it's weekly maintenance.

We don't really know how many people keep this game going. I don't think it takes more then 5 people to staff IT positions 24/7. This is not a mission-critical environment.

Amren no need to argue with nay sayers. They miss the point the income from UO is easily projected. From that projection - ALL COSTS, they still make a profit.

Be it in salaries or allocations to bandwidth or whatever.

IT MAKES MONEY.

ding dong. Just agree with me everyone and move on

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

Get back on topic or be banned. We have no need of the nonsense.

*ahem*
Speaking of nonsense KELMO ...
Is WilkiEA already amongst the departed?

He used to be able to shoot the straight stuffs ...

Just saying ...
Who IS actively seeking good info?

Fayled

 

[Potgut]

If a title had to go from mythic, first i'd imagine it be warhammer before UO. I mean, just based on everything i've heard on how *cough* well WAR has been doing since its release... However, cancellation of WAR would be negative to UO of course, the departments share resources. WAR was probably suppose to be the new cake, the breadwinner for Mythic, while UO would be the icing on the cake, but didn't turn out to be like that; I hope EA likes icing.

 

[Harb]

This is one those times I've read every post in a long thread, and wow. It's probably a good bet Chrissay has moved on, and likely not a surprize to her as she's been absent here for a noticable time. She did well, and frankly will be missed assuming the worse. Unfortunately it kinda goes with that particular job position, and would not be a first. As to Wilki, I hope not, continued loyalty really should count for something. Same with Lerocian, though apparently he is off "dev" and on another EA project, that's another fella that although not on the EA payroll forever, he has been a UO subscriber "forever." Sakkarah also hasn't posted for a few days now, God hope she didn't get axed, that lady should have great things in front of her, and we're all better off if that future is here. Phoenix, known to many of us old timers as "Vex" just moved back onto our team, it would suck for him to be shafted, and TheGrimmOmen, one of the originals, also returned recently but seems safe. Like Chrissay, it's a good bet the EMs will also part ways for the near term, but again we'll have to see.

As for the business gurus here, read stockholder reports. It mystifies me to some extent, but for some reason, there is a belief at the EA corporate level that UO is a gem. Be that historical context, misinformation, or better information than we have, it's a trend that has been ongoing for some time. Will we be here next year - certainly. Just like the last time this happened, we'll have to watch and see, more info "may" come out as we move along, but it's very possible that for the near term we'll all simply have to guess on any of the individual "eaches." Just keep them all in your hearts and prayers, and look forward to better days!

 

[Ivorythorn]

Uummm... my brain hurts. They are not going to merge shards. That would not be good. They know that. They would sooner close down the game than MERGE SHARDS! Give them a little credit. And according to the TOS, to shut down the game they have to give us 90 days NOTICE. Aaarrrggghhhhh!

 

[Tomas_Bryce]

Be banned.

This is totally on topic.

Not a single one of your 1,674 posts has ever been on topic.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Is that a challenge ?

I think the effects on UO will be disastrous, but it's not like we're not used to it right ?

They have to realise that UO is like a neverending story more than something you "tend" to like an object, like what has been done since what, age of shadows ?

In this game the people who take care of it and their relation with the community is more important than the actual content.

Keep switching the people around, you directly kill the game, a little everytime, and I'm certain statistics would reflect that. I feel extreme anger everytime... I get into the story, we try to participate, we do the quests then poof...

Sorry you have new Ems, why ? We wont tell you... it's just like that.

Poof, you have new devs. Poof you have less devs... lets replace them with mechanical replacements... fake automated quests...

Uo is like a living vehicle, and it's been bionised, metal parts now stick out and it's mutilated and suffering.

When I look at warhammer, I see WoW, is it me or it's an exact same replica ? Couldn't they at least have made the paperdoll look a BIT different ?

I don't even feel like trying it ! Last but not least I'm going to explain why the god comment is on topic ; because it's common knowledge amongst players while doing roleplay that we refer to EA devs and robed people in general as "gods" and that they respond to a high authorithy called "god".

Oh of course this is humor, but does anyone really know who makes those decisions ? And why would they not care about a game that takes so little bandwidth and generated over 500k a month ? I'm not a math genius but here the concept of "god" seems more on topic in the ironic sense than the concept of a rational decision maker with a face.

 

[kelmo]

Let's just say I will take a very dim view to pot stirring and inciting...

 

[Nestorius]

I like the Richard Garriott buying UO idea.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Yeah me too... this would definately calm me down. I wouldn't even try to be special.

At least I can put a face on who leads this game towards doom or glory !

 

[jbfortune]

Maybe we just just all have a fire sale.

 

[Viquire]

Some valid points, but I think I'll steer clear of religion on general principle.

I think most of all what I derive from jnkxs is a mourning for possible mal-effect from a lack of continuity, and while I will give that notion some credence, I will also say that I think the game as a whole suffers more in this respect from design direction decisions made at levels above our entire team including the producer.

The last wave of layoffs did indeed send a lot of Stratics posters off the handle as did the one before that, and the changes of location and loss of some team members before that and so on ad-nauseum. But lets flip that, we also gained a fantastic team, who despite some nay-sayers have over time produced some excellent in game events and the biggest most well rounded expansion the game has seen to date. New life is good, new ideas melded to the lore that is Ultima can produce content that is more engaging to the populace of Britannia as a whole than those that seek only to reproduce what has gone before.

I have problems finding people that roleplay in the game now. A lot of the things that made grouping necessary have died off. I miss that part of the game on a regular basis, but at the same time I am thoroughly enjoying what I am now able to do that I could not before.

It is we the players that make the continuity, the story lines, the choices. Our best Devs get that. Our original design team certainly put it at the core of what it means to play this game. Other producers see what we do with that freedom and, perhaps wisely, choose another path. We rant and rave because we are involved, with the content, with the environment, with our characters, with each other; for all the good and bad that that entails.

Being empowered to make story line is what makes it great, makes it special, makes it yours.

This current Halloween content shows more clearly than in a long time the trust the Dev team has in us the players to make good decisions as to what to do with the power to do many things, and I am sure that they are watching to see how we handle ourselves in light of the freedom to summon a Harbinger, but at the same time this is not new. It is just an expansion of the ability of weavers to pull a monster out of a dungeon and have it serve them in their adventures. Without the layoffs in the move to Redwood we would not have gained Sak, who is an invaluable asset IMHO.

I took almost all day yesterday to mourn what might have been and what was. I will not be repeating that today. In the midst of my remembering I found some sites inexplicably still hosted although dormant for years in some cases, and it was good to remember. Today, however, I think I will focus on what may be.

I choose to hope that those devs still with us will find reasons to be creatively excited in their job and the community of players they serve in reasonably short order. I choose to hope that those team members who are no longer a part of our community will find opportunities to become involved in other places that have as much passion and promise as this one does. I choose... today... to hope.

 

[Fizzleton]

Lord British taking over the game would not change anything. Although Lord British may be well up now with some millions on his account, to make UO function in business terms means to make people invest in UO. Because first you have to take money in your hands to get money back. And each investor will ask the same question: How much? How much will my investment bring back to me? Either you can answer his question in a sound way - then u get the money u need. Or you can't, and will not see a single cent.

Maybe EA holds UO for some technical know-how that is unique in gaming business, maybe its a "cash cow" in portfolio-terms - who knows. Giving UO back to Lord British could put it in more danger than it is now.

 

[lucitus]

Draconi is out or? The UO FB side is down, so i think he is out...

 

[Harlequin]

Draconi is out or? The UO FB side is down, so i think he is out...

No official news yet. He could just be hiding his FB account.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

What shocked me most is the well known fact that their servers are hack free... like completely.

And now they would fire Draconi ?

 

[gjohnson5]

I heard they let Chrissay go...
I seem to remember the last time EA has a terrible earnings report and issued a round of layoffs, the UO public Coordinator also got the axe there as well. This was aside from the fact that UO was making money (assuming this is true as I haven't seen EA balance sheets)

Personally I was hoping that some layoffs would make EA listen to the community more about what should be changed in the game. Apparently that opinion was dead wrong based on the last 2 rounds of layoffs EA has done.

UO can be profitable , but the management and accounting sides of business are looking for areas to financially trim. The sad part of this is that the offending project which has terribly flopped gets to stay. (assuming the Warhammer poject was clearly that far in the red) If this is true , then I dunno what to say for future game changes and bug fixes. Maybe more expansions will be planned , but as far as upping functionality, stability, and customer support , EA seems to have missed the mark. These guys just don't seem to know how to ientify and fix what's broken. That is evident in how time has been managed for in-game issues.

 

[hawkeye_pike]

I guess this is one of the most useless threads I've ever seen on Stratics.

• There's an EA layoff, alright.
• People predict UO being shutdown.
• People say good bye to Chrissay, and predict the depature of other staff members.
• People make wild guesses about economic efficiency of UO without knowing facts.
• People predict server merges.
• People post that they don't care about UO being shut down cause they play WoW anyway.
• People are afraid of UO being shut down cause they love this game so much.

All this is completely made-up utter nonsense. My advise is, before spreading this kind of agitation, wait until you hear about the real facts.

 

[Harlequin]

What shocked me most is the well known fact that their servers are hack free... like completely.

And now they would fire Draconi ?

The hack free statement is not quite correct. There are hacks, 3-rd party apps and scripting. Some of the better operated player run shards have cobbled up custom codes to prevent (or at least detect) certain popular 3rd party programs from working, that's true. But not all the player run shards are like this, and not against all illegal programs. In general, they only have resources to deal with the better known programs. Most do not have the hardening to prevent intrusions for a direct hack.

Hack free also have 1 more implication - whether hackers deem it worth the time and resources to hack. Consider that a hacker needs time and effort to code a hack. Would this person focus his efforts on a player-run shard where the payoff is worth alot less than an EA prodo shard?

Also, there's the bragging rights that goes along with hacking a prodo shard compared to a player run shard.

 

[Harlequin]

I guess this is one of the most useless threads I've ever seen on Stratics.

• There's an EA layoff, alright.
• People predict UO being shutdown.
• People say good bye to Chrissay, and predict the depature of other staff members.
• People make wild guesses about economic efficiency of UO without knowing facts.
• People predict server merges.
• People post that they don't care about UO being shut down cause they play WoW anyway.
• People are afraid of UO being shut down cause they love this game so much.

All this is completely made-up utter nonsense. My advise is, before spreading this kind of agitation, wait until you hear about the real facts.

You forgot

• People that are trying to quell the panic and do damage control
  
• People trying to intentionally sow panic and cause damage

 

[hungry4knowhow]

You forgot

• People that are trying to quell the panic and do damage control
  
• People trying to intentionally sow panic and cause damage

<----------Certified Damage Controller. Parent/A++Certified Dealer with Pregnant Women.

Someone should give me a job.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

I guess this is one of the most useless threads I've ever seen on Stratics.

• There's an EA layoff, alright.
• People predict UO being shutdown.
• People say good bye to Chrissay, and predict the depature of other staff members.
• People make wild guesses about economic efficiency of UO without knowing facts.
• People predict server merges.
• People post that they don't care about UO being shut down cause they play WoW anyway.
• People are afraid of UO being shut down cause they love this game so much.

All this is completely made-up utter nonsense. My advise is, before spreading this kind of agitation, wait until you hear about the real facts.

Very GOOD. Please lets sticky this for future.

People enjoy arguing polar opposites vs. looking at the truth in the middle.

And on a side not free-shards arent UO, dont compare, and dont have any better technology. They dont have scripting issues cause they dont HAVE UO. Check em out.

UO isnt going anywhere. SA is outstanding. The sad part is people just lost their jobs.

 

[Harb]

I guess this is one of the most useless threads I've ever seen on Stratics.

• There's an EA layoff, alright.
• People predict UO being shutdown.
• People say good bye to Chrissay, and predict the depature of other staff members.
• People make wild guesses about economic efficiency of UO without knowing facts.
• People predict server merges.
• People post that they don't care about UO being shut down cause they play WoW anyway.
• People are afraid of UO being shut down cause they love this game so much.

All this is completely made-up utter nonsense. My advise is, before spreading this kind of agitation, wait until you hear about the real facts.

You forgot

• People that are trying to quell the panic and do damage control
  
• People trying to intentionally sow panic and cause damage

Correct by both you guys. Thanks.

 

[JC the Builder]

Has any layoffs been confirmed yet for the UO team? So far I've only seen posts by TheGrimmOmen.

 

[Kri]

Has any layoffs been confirmed yet for the UO team? So far I've only seen posts by TheGrimmOmen.

Supreem posted in the 2d thread yesterday and I believe Mesanna was seen in-game.

 

[GreyPawn]

Hello friends,

I hope you don't mind me jumping in here, I don't really think this thread is going to be addressed anytime soon, and as a longtime player I feel compelled to speak up.

Unfortunately, it is a common occurrence that when things get tough and layoffs are necessary, the higher-ups in the industry target customer service and community first, operating under the assumption that these roles can be performed by designers with "free time" or programmers and artists with forum accounts. I myself was actually recently laid off in my job as community manager for another game, so I know what Chrissay and the rest of the folks at EA Mythic must be going through.

I don't know if she'll have the opportunity to say goodbye, but her profile on a professional networking site does indicate her role as Community Coordinator as "past tense", and her status is "Looking for new opportunities." I hope I'm not letting the cat out of the bag on that, or misreading intentions, I just hate to see so much mounting anxiety from fellow players.

On the bright side, it doesn't look like UO's team took as big of a hit as the other games. Even more on the positive side, as many have speculated, UO is likely still profitable, despite at least four attempts now to remake the original client. Having a solid subscriber base after more than a decade of service is one major advantage to survival that few other MMOs can claim.

As for the future being "interesting" as the stock letter from the "guy left after the storm" said, I'm sure he was referencing the great passion that the design team still have for improving UO. I don't know about you, but I've noticed a shift in focus lately towards focusing on actually filling out content and quests by the dev team, rather than mindless toil on client improvements and new systems, and it has been inspiring.

The one thing I hope beyond hope survived the axe was the EM team, or at minimum the staff responsible for making the EM team work. Live events breathe spirit and innovation into the game and give the subscriber a reason beyond hording instincts and sentimentality to stick around. With regards to the community though, you guys are resilient, and we've been through worse together. Remember the double housing revert after Trammel came out? Hoo boy. I do. So, without a community goober to translate, the folks who are left are going to need us to come in a little clearer, and perhaps a little less reactionary. That's not beyond something a community as mature as ours is can't accomplish.

-GP

 

[kelmo]

Nice post Grey.

 

[Duke SP]

I guess that explains why i have never seen a GM and only got canned responses since playing this game.

 

[Amber Moon]

Heh, interesting to find you here. Some of us know your CM story and I have to say it's legend in some game development forums.

But I'll say no more beyond, I hope you are correct about the extent of the layoffs. We will see.

 

[kelmo]

I will be removing all posts referring to player shards. If you want to discuss this find a relevant thread. There have been many over the years.

Illegally run shards are not topical in this thread.

Got issues with this? Contact managment.

 

[Viper09]

How much are they paid... for christ's sake... so they HAD to fire them ?!

Well if you have to cut jobs to keep a business from losing too much I'd imagine you get rid of the positions that are least important to the company first. I don't think UO is very important to EA, thus they probably left Mythic with just enough staff to keep the game going.

Just because they dropped some of the Mythic staff doesn't mean they were getting payed a lot for their work.

 

[Amber Moon]

On the subject of if layoffs were necessary, this from an interview with the CEO:

Riccitiello commented on the matter in a conference call following EA's latest quarterly earnings, which saw the company's net loss widen to $391 million.

So yeah, in a market that says revenue will be flat or continue to fall for a bit, it's not hard to understand the why....

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

So they make sucky games nobody likes and their solution is to cut in the game that costs less for the most MONTHLY profit ?

I take it personally...

 

[Viper09]

So they make sucky games nobody likes and their solution is to cut in the game that costs less for the most MONTHLY profit ?

I take it personally...

Sucky game that nobody likes? If nobody likes it then it wouldn't still be running with enough player-base to keep them from closing it.

It doesn't matter though. If you don't like it then don't keep playing it. If you do like me, then just play the game and enjoy it while it lasts

 

[kelmo]

So they make sucky games nobody likes and their solution is to cut in the game that costs less for the most MONTHLY profit ?

I take it personally...

Sucky game that nobody likes? If nobody likes it then it wouldn't still be running with enough player-base to keep them from closing it.

It doesn't matter though. If you don't like it then don't keep playing it. If you do like me, then just play the game and enjoy it while it lasts

Agendas are funny like that.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

You got it all wrong Viper...

I wasn't talking about UO... the guy was talking about EA revenues as a whole.

I was talking about those other games they make...

EA didn't make UO...

and then again, I don't say all I think, because I can't.

 

[Viper09]

You got it all wrong Viper...

I wasn't talking about UO... the guy was talking about EA revenues as a whole.

I was talking about those other games they make...

EA didn't make UO...

and then again, I don't say all I think, because I can't.

My mistake then. Didn't know who you were responding to.

But it becomes a habit to think we're talking about UO most, if not all the time, on this forum.

 

[Ahuaeyjnkxs]

Yeah , but in this case it's obvious that EA is putting all their money into PS3 and whatnot console games for... *censored*

*censored*

in *censored*

And we, the faithful monthly paying, some of which have been paying for so long and with so many accounts they should have a part of the game owned by them.

Well we're getting cut.

Now they're all having chills making ultimate fighting games full of graphic violence for kids, and paying HUGE amounts which could pay salaries to the whole mythic team, just to get the right to use famous fighters faces in the game.

And thats one of the silly "t'sin the game" crap they spend millions on.

We're being laughed at, I'm appaled that not more people are angry about this...