EA Madden developer lays off 650 EMPLOYEES

M

MegaDrive20XX

Segatron Genesis... call me the wizard.
http://kotaku.com/5136687/ea-confirms-cuts-at-madden-developer

Good god, someone get the license plate of that truck! We just had 650 taken!
 
Mai Valentine said:
Wait, Madden? Isn't Madden a veritable cash cow? How are they in need of laying off people? :o
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I doubt they need 650 people to develop the yearly update for Madden. It isn't so much that Madden is doing bad, but EA is just trimming the fat.
 
Homicidal Cherry53 said:
I doubt they need 650 people to develop the yearly update for Madden. It isn't so much that Madden is doing bad, but EA is just trimming the fat.
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The Madden team only has 6 months to work on each Madden, which is a huge crunch for time. The more people who can work on it effectively the better. I can see trimming the fat, but 650 is a big part of the meat.
 
Strubes said:
The Madden team only has 6 months to work on each Madden, which is a huge crunch for time. The more people who can work on it effectively the better. I can see trimming the fat, but 650 is a big part of the meat.
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As well, EA has been notorious for having some of the longest/hardest "crunch times" of any software developer, so losing 650 people is not good news for the people who kept their jobs either.
 
stealth toilet said:
As well, EA has been notorious for having some of the longest/hardest "crunch times" of any software developer, so losing 650 people is not good news for the people who kept their jobs either.
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Exactly. That's why I was saying the more people who can work effectively together, the better. It hurts them on both sides. The people who are let go, and the people who are left working.
 
Honestly, I'm surprised they even have 650 Madden developers to lay off. Most development teams don't even approach that size.

Strubes said:
The Madden team only has 6 months to work on each Madden, which is a huge crunch for time. The more people who can work on it effectively the better. I can see trimming the fat, but 650 is a big part of the meat.
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Why only six months? They have only six months to add in player stats and stuff, but improvements to the engine and gameplay changes can be started as soon as the last Madden is released.
 
The core game has to be complete in 6 months. After that, they only have two more months to add in player stats, new players, and minor tweaks. After that, the new Madden then goes gold, and is distributed to different media outlets (like Madden Nation) and put on hold from store shelves in case more changes need to be made. Though, it would be easier for them to just add in patches if anything changes, like they actually do...but there's so much more that goes into a Madden game than most people realize.
 
You would think that maybe EA would consider not releasing a new Madden game every single year. I know its a guaranteed cash flow, but not only does a schedule that tight hurt the end product, I can't imagine its much fun to be someone involved in a project with that kind of timeline.

The more I think about it, maybe getting laid off from there would be a good thing. :lol
 
There's alot that goes into the game though. There's actually a large amount of employees who get to spend days with the actual NFL athletes, and watch football games for homework. Given the right position could be a ton of fun for an EA Madden Team employee.
 
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