Electronic Arts Leadership Are Out of Their Goddamned Minds | Hacker News Reader

Electronic Arts Leadership Are Out of Their Goddamned Minds

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64 pointsdotmanish57 comments

I think the thing a lot of people don't realise when trying to make the next runaway hit game is that most of the games they're trying to emulate weren't produced with that intent, and didn't get their popularity with a running start as some massive AAA behemoth.

Fortnite itself was originally a base-building PVE zombie game that Epic cranked out a battle royale mode for in a couple of months after seeing that PUBG (which at the time was a janky, unpolished and presumably cheap-to-develop standalone version of an ARMA mod) was a huge success. Then after it's out, Epic restructures behind it as a cash cow, makes it into a modding platform, uses it to improve Unreal Engine, etc.

Minecraft was a little solo project in Java - now 350m copies sold. It didn't start off as a platform for other games, available on every console with cutting edge graphics and $100m in marketing spend behind it.

Ark sold 80 million copies. It was an Early Access game on Steam by a team of 35, then it took off and they ported it to everything.

Battle Royale's been done and been a huge hit for PUBG (2017), then Fortnite, then Warzone. I think it's about time that people would be getting sick of it, same as open world survival crafting games were the big thing (Minecraft, DayZ, Ark) and MMOs. Next Battlefield is $400m, all those other big hits were probably more in the $100k-$1m range. Maybe it would be better to make a bunch of $1m-$10m range games, see which one is a hit, then move resources behind it. I imagine changing the structure of a big business like EA to be able to make a move like that would be a very, very difficult undertaking though.

I don’t think it’s about the size off the project but the crestivity, cohesion, gameplay and good storytelling.

There are plenty of counter examples like Witcher 3, Desth Starnding, Resident Evil Village and Cyberpunk (regardless of its rocky launch)

The issue with EA and Ubisoft nowadays is that they are not run by game designers but by MBAs and HR departments. There is very little room to disagree with the mandates and if the game must have x,y,z then you need to find a way to cram it regardless.

When you kill the creativity and don’t take bold risks, you kill innovation and ultimately suck the soul out of the game.

Games are a form of art after all.

'Creative decisions made by people who don't even like the output' was a good phrasing I recently heard.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Qm6_lEdcQ&t=656s

It's incredibly difficult to pick good creative things if you don't have the same spark their actual consumers do.

Sure, maybe someone is experienced, but they'll always be looking at it through a completely different lens than consumers. Eventually that creates a blind spot and understandings diverge disastrously.

Ex: the infamous Diablo mobile game announcement

How they actually would had a chance is to develop 1000 such experimental games with those resources and see what sticks. Unimaginable in a corporate setting though.

> I think the thing a lot of people don't realise when trying to make the next runaway hit game

Okay sure, let's say that. I don't think it's true. I think anyone who has ever made anything creative, which is most people, know that chasing success just make your creative work bad. That doesn't matter though.

Surely the executives at EA should know better. Like it's literally their job to know better. They head an entire organization dedicated to creative production. Surely the board would fire them if they don't know better right?

What is going on?

The key insight into EA behavior is that "runaway hit game" is a subcultural term, not a business analysis. An EA executive would tell you that they published a runaway hit game just last year. You know and I know that they won't be able to get a bunch of Battlefield sales with the lessons they learned from EA Sports College Football 25 - but it's not so easy to explain why to someone who doesn't already agree.

> Surely the executives at EA should know better.

This...

> Like it's literally their job to know better.

...does not follow from this.

And executives get where they are, at least in significant part, because they are good at telling boards what they want to hear. They are also, generally speaking, in the same class as the board members, and together they are very willing to blame failures on those darn workers just doing a bad job at stuff.

"What is going on" is that the executive class in America has been progressively getting more and more divorced from the reality of actual production, and treating their opinions and expertise as if they are somehow definitive on everything related to their domain is very dangerous.

It’s not limited to games either. How many TV shows and movies in the last 10 years have shit the bed because instead of taking a good proven story from society and adapting it for screen, they decided that people actually want to hear a different story and had their “writers” hack up good art and turn it into gloopy strings of virtuous platitudes?

DotA was a custom map for Warcraft III

Left for Dead started as a Counterstrike mod.

And Counterstrike started as a Half-Life mod. It's elephants all the way down!!

I'm actually really surprised that Microsoft hasn't been more inspired by Minecraft mods for their direction

If they took something like Create and put it into a new Minecraft release it would be incredible

https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/create

I've dedicated over 4,000 hours to the Battlefield series, with Battlefield 4 being my absolute favorite for its immersive, tactical gameplay and vibrant community. I eagerly played every title in the series until Battlefield 2042, which I found unplayable due to its departure from the core elements that made the franchise special. My frustration stems from a trend I see in companies like EA and even Samsung: chasing the "flavor of the year" instead of enhancing their unique strengths. If I wanted a Fortnite-style experience or an Apple-like ecosystem, I would have chosen those—I want Battlefield to be Battlefield.

One of my biggest issues with modern gaming, including Battlefield 2042, is the shift from community servers to matchmaking lobbies. I’ve never enjoyed lobbies, as they prioritize quick, transient matches over meaningful player interactions. Community servers allowed players to build relationships, strategize together, and create lasting memories, fostering a sense of camaraderie. Playing in lobbies feels like facing bots—there’s no human connection, and you’re unlikely to see those players again, making the experience feel empty and disconnected.

Gaming used to be my way of meeting like-minded people, and my Steam friends list is filled with players I met through Battlefield and other games. However, I haven’t added a new friend in years, as modern gaming’s focus on fast-paced, disposable matches makes it nearly impossible to form meaningful connections. I hope developers like EA return to the series’ roots, emphasizing tactical gameplay and community-driven servers to recapture the magic that made Battlefield a platform for both thrilling gameplay and lasting friendships.

In some sense, that's working as intended for a lot of people, not just developers.

A lot of people who consume games don't want to foster lasting relationships, they want to tick the box saying "played game for X hours today" and move on.

I think that's pathological and, as you say, leads to lots of knock-on toxic effects in gameplay and community.

But it is the reality this is engineered for - a lot of people who play multiplayer games do not want to feel like they're doing something with other people when doing it, which is part of why you get lots of toxic interactions or entitled complaints about something which might be a good strategy but ruins the game experience for some of the people in the match.

Partly agree with your sentiment. Made with friends on Valorant alone. Around 318 people and 100 people on Blizzard things, Diablo and Overwatch 2.

Battlefield 4 was amazing. It's sad that after all they went through with the community engagement and updates to that game to make it so good, they threw it all away to start from scratch making vibrantly coloured battle royale slop worse than everyone else was already doing it.

I put somewhere over 12k hours into BF4 alone, and I've barely touched the series since. That game had the special sauce that they've failed to capture ever since. An updated remastered Battlefield 4 would perform incredibly well; ironically, my biggest fear for it would be that EA wouldn't be able to help themselves, giving a huge budget to a massive team and completely wrecking it by doing too much.

12000 hours? That's 16 solid months. I can't imagine putting that much time into anything.

You are surely joking:-)

12000 hours is 4 years at 8 hours a day.

Not at all. It was over a longer period than 4 years though (BF4 had a remarkably long life) and included sessions of over 40 hours straight at my worst.

Its EA... they're idiots. Too many MBAs thinking they can make the next multi-billion dollar moonshot game without thinking about what matters. Also they're addicted to subscription revenue models.

MBAs types generally show up in places that are doing fine, usually with ridiculous pay structures for themselves, then move the company in the direction that ensures their own pay is justified. This inevitably ruins the original business. Boeing is a prime example, so is almost the entire gaming industry.

I think a huge part of the problem in the North American game industry is that the execs and MBAs you mention still seem to have a mentality that games are for gross dorky losers

It's really weird how much the game industry seems to despise their audience

MBA should have been education for managers who already have industry experience so that they can better perform in their new responsibilities. Unfortunately everyone collectively decided that an MBA degree was a substitute for competency.

I suspect this has a lot to do with Nepotism still

"You can't just hire your friend's son for that job, it needs credentials"

"Oh it's fine, he has his MBA"

Where MBA is a relatively easy degree to get that even a pretty average person can coast through

> It's really weird how much the game industry seems to despise their audience

its an endemic behavior when you recruit MBAs that are not growing from within the company. not limited to gaming at all.

I agree that it's a bigger problem than just the game industry. I just didn't want to be accused of over-generalizing

Well in this case they aren't trying a moonshot but instead milking a tired franchise.

"We really need to go back to fundamentals, if we want to restore our past glory. So we'll spend 6 months ironing out the monetization infrastructure, and then let's brainstorm about what kind of game we want to make."

Is it feasible to get 100 million people to play this game even if it was free? I have to imagine that once you get to $400 million, every additional dollar has effectively no value add. When is it not better to just target a smaller user base and spend way less money? I’m unfamiliar with the ins an outs of this industry, so I am genuinely unsure.

Apparently Fortnite peaked at 110 million monthly players. So I think a Battlefield title reaching that level is simply unachievable. The series definitely has a considerably smaller potential audience, and I think its unlikely they'll be able to release on 3 consoles, pc, and mobile devices in their launch window to match the platform reach.

As you say, at some point you can't cram more $ into the product in a way that meaningfully affects the experience. Every area eventually experiences diminishing returns, especially within the framework of a realistic-ish multiplayer shooter. There is a kind of winner-takes-all effect to digital media, but this takes it too far.

It is kindof crazy how lethargic the big publishers are. For EA: 7 years after Hollow Knight to release a metroidvania, 9 years since Stardew Valley to release a new 'cozy' title, at this rate it will be 5 more years before we see their proximity chat game in response to Lethal Company. The trends are literally rendered passé by multiple waves of indie and A/AA games before they react. You'd think having a ton of money, and a giant pool of experienced developers, they could be fast-followers at least. Seems they are content to just push money into slow, giant 'summer blockbuster' type titles though.

Edit: Totally forgot, this is all about a battle-royale title, so assuming it releases next year: 9 years after Fortnite and 6 after the CoD equivalent.

>I have to imagine that once you get to $400 million, every additional dollar has effectively no value add.

This will be Star Citizen.

At best, if it ever properly launches, you will get maybe 20 mill of game from a lot more than that.

I think we can be fairly confident that just giving a ravenous game designer an unlimited credit card doesnt translate into a better game.

I used to spend way too much time, and money, playing the mobile game Tap Sports Baseball. A fairly simple take on a baseball simulator, but with an insanely set of team/club competitiveness and upgrade mechanics. After EA bought the company that owned it, it literally lasted a year before they decided to end it, as its tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year apparently didn't meet their goals.

EA has a well-earned reputation as the grim reaper of the industry.

Really a shame battlebit player count tanked, that was a perfect battlefield emulator. Now, without either, I am stuck in warzone

The new Modern Warfare 2 remake had great "ground war" mode that was similar to Conquest, although it's not very populated anymore

Has anyone identified why battlebit player count tanked?

There is nothing wrong with setting high goals and trying to reach them. That they are failing is a different issue. This article is trying to farm outrage but there isn't any.

It’s important to set attainable goals. My guess is that this will put incredible, undue stress on the staff.

Business idiots, as Ed Zitron would say.

The Ars writer said he spoke to a number of contributors to the game and it's a sweatshop. But hey, good on the MBAs not doing the development for setting ambitious goals!

This is how I read it too. EA has a reputation for breaking good teams and studios. Although, they are not the only ones with an unhealthy crunch culture.

These goals, and their 'approach' to reaching them is a complete self-cannibalizing snake moment. Further, there can definitely be something _wrong_ with how someone might try to 'reach their high goals', like ethics violations, etc.

And saying the article is trying to 'farm outrage' is extreme- it's barely an article if anything, more of a blog-post, with a matching tone, there's not exactly any call-to-action.

The article also feels a little dishonest comparing total unit sales to cumulative player statistics over an extended time period. If you click through to the linked Ars Technica article, it says the cumulative player number for the previous entry is 22 million and 30 million for the best of the series. Is a 3-5x increase from going from presumably a $60 game to free to play really that crazy of a goal?

That isn't to say that EA doesn't suck. This 100m goal just wouldn't be among the top 100 reasons I would point to as evidence.

It sounds like they tried to achieve their goals not by making a game that people wanted to play, but by resurrecting The Mythical Man Month and not only believing that this zombie anti-science idea works, but that it could produce a massively fun game.

every video game is a financial gamble, it's not his money so who cares if they try to make a battle royale and it flops

We've had a considerable number of layoffs impact the video game industry over the past few years ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022%E2%80%932025_video_game_i... ) and executive incompetence is a big factor in it.

Deciding to set a "success" target of 100 million players and then spending upwards of $400 million USD developing one title is a recipe for studio closures and/or layoffs when it inevitably "fails" because executive leadership didn't set reasonable targets or come up with a reasonable budget. It's a big house of cards.

A more diversified portfolio of titles with more reasonable budgets would be a much safer choice, and it's how things were done successfully in the past.

i'd rather see studios take creative and financial risks personally, not saying I care about yet another battle royale game, but in principle it should be about good games that are innovative and push boundaries, not milking a sequel from an established ip for the sake of stable employment.

Creative risks and financial risks are almost diametrically opposed. It's a lot harder to take a creative risk when a lot of money is on the line. It's also harder aligning a large team to execute on a novel vision.

>It's a lot harder to take a creative risk when a lot of money is on the line. It's also harder aligning a large team to execute on a novel vision.

well indie games are their own separate thing and large studios will never have the creative freedom and the ability to align a small team to a novel vision that they do. However studios with deeper pockets and larger teams can still innovate and push the boundaries of what gaming can be so long as the executive team isn't a bunch of spineless losers.

What is the point of this post, there is barely any content to it

Its basically blogspam

The article that is linked in the post is a much more interesting read.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/07/behind-the-next-battl...

How long before "blogspam" evokes a quaintly nostalgic feeling of a better, more innocent time?

EA did recently release another corpus of C&C source code so I’m quite chuffed with their leadership in that regard. Now we just need BfME and E:BfD source code and maybe toss in NoX and a few other classics and we are cruising. But Renegade? Fuck. What a masterstroke. Whoever thought to release that is an absolute ledge.

not only EA but Ubisoft as well. Online only single player followed by a burning desire to convert everything into generic open world games followed by another strong burning desire to shutdown servers for everything without providing a LAN alternative or a way for people to play that game again with friends followed by another burning desire to add microtransactions into everything everywhere

I can imagine the ‘inflation’ to get to 100 million might be sort of like the way Chinese prefectures (?) would inflate their rice harvest estimates - a ‘great leap forward’ that leaves destruction behind it.

Is it fair to compare full price games with a maybe free-to-play title.

How would this comparison look for the Epic games like Unreal vs. Fortnite?

Looks very in-group. I don't think drive-by readers are supposed to understand it.

They've been out of their mind for 20 years, how's that newsworthy?

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