Manufacturer of "The Sims, Madden NFL"...31% profit drop, 100s of job cuts

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

The world's largest game company announced a 31 percent profit drop and hundreds of job cuts on Thursday. Electronic Arts Inc. said it earned $259 million, or 83 cents a share, on an 11 percent drop in revenue to $1.27 billion.

EA (NASDAQ:ERTS) began laying off 325 to 350 employees on Wednesday, or 5 percent of its work force. The company reportedly will cut about 140 workers at EA headquarters in Redwood City, where 1,600 are employed. Most of the newly unemployed are game developers, including computer graphics artists and programmers,

EA, maker of "Madden NFL" and "The Sims" said the move will help reduce costs and realign resources as the company moves through a revenue-slowing transition to new gaming consoles.

EA and its competitors have all suffered slower game sales in recent months, typical as the industry moves to adopt next-generation game machines, which happens every five years or so. Many consumers are delaying new game purchases in anticipation of the release of Sony's PlayStation3, due out later this year. Microsoft began selling its new Xbox 360 in November but supplies are still scarce. Company spokesman Jeff Brown has also said EA is realigning game development resources to work on online gaming, and games for mobile phones and handheld systems. EA said it would offer employees severance packages, and, for some, positions elsewhere in the company.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2006/01/30/daily44.html?f=et79&hbx=e_du

[central scrutinizer]

1. maybe they can google for a cheat code

to increase their revenue. All of the characters in my daughter's Sims world have all the money they need

[ArbustoBuster]

3. The cheat code JACKABRAMOFF...

...has been disabled. Please update your economy to version 2.1.

[cornermouse]

2. I've seen precious few computer games that I would spend my

money on lately and I'm not that fond of buying playstation or nintendo. I'd rather have my kids playing on the computer and being comfortable with and accustomed to using a computer.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

4. This Usually Happens. They'll Bounce Back Definitely With The PS3 Release

EA is pretty good, though I never did quite get into the sims at all.

[SmokingJacket]

5. I liked the Sims for a while...

but then it advanced to the point where it would take up my whole life if I wanted to really enjoy it. I have a life -- don't need a virtual one too.

[Alexander]

6. EA killed the Ultima series - they should go bankrupt.

Before Baldur's Gate, Morrowind, Everquest, Diablo, whatever, there was Ultima.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima

"Ultima is a series of fantasy computer role-playing games from Origin Systems, Inc.. Ultima was created by Richard Garriott, a.k.a. Lord British. Several games of the series are considered seminal games of their genre. Today, Electronic Arts holds the brand."

Created in 1980, the Ultima series inspired just about every type of RPG you can think of. The last one came out in 1999 (Ultima IX), and it was, quite frankly, crap.

And, of course, EA bought the rights back in the early 1990s, and rushed the last three games out, which by anyone's standards suffered in quality.

So fuck EA. Maybe someday I can be rich enough to buy the rights from them, and redo some of the games so they don't suck.