EA Apparently Thinks There’s an Art To Firing People

A decent number of devs at BioWare, people who have given us all kinds of classics, have fallen victim to yet another round of layoffs. This time, under the guise of RESTRUCTURING. The idea being that EA and BioWare don’t see the need for the full team working on Mass Effect 5. 

There’s a constant feeling of whiplash being a gamer now because of how these companies move. You can look forward to a game one day, and the next, you’re screaming from the rooftops about how terribly they’re treating devs. The layoff itself is ridiculous, but the way it was done? Horrible. 

BIOWARE’S DEVS DESERVED BETTER, EA — ALL DEVS DO

Dragon Age: The Veilguard, after its initial announcement, received a particularly skeptical and bewildered reaction. And in that, of course, the devs had to deal with weird and flat-out disrespectful comments. Did EA step in and back them? Of course not. 

When the game came out and it was better than people thought, I had some hope it would do well. And, let’s be honest: for us as gamers, if you bought and enjoyed it, it did well. Sales numbers mean nothing to us just like they mean nothing in music. Did they make a great game? Yes. 

Their reward? Statements that the game failed to meet expectations sales-wise. I don’t know, EA — maybe if you had supported the devs a little better when they were eating crappy comments for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the game might have performed “to expectations.” But, you allowed the internet hive mind to poison the well, and here we are. 

WHAT KIND OF STATEMENT WAS THAT?

So, here comes BioWare, with one of the weirdest statements I’ve ever seen announcing a layoff:

“Given this stage of development, we don’t require support from the full studio…we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit.”

So, you fired a bunch of people and then tried to stuff as many of them as you could into other roles somewhere else? Well, what about those you couldn’t shuffle over? They’re just screwed? Make no mistake, this is one of the NASTIEST moves I’ve seen a company make at a time when they’re all moving nasty. Those devs deserved better. Those people deserved better.

I’m not sure what the answers are, but it damn sure isn’t that. So, if you’re scrolling social media and happen to see one of the devs — or any devs — looking for work, signal boost. Do what you can to support these people who have given us so many great moments.