Topic: Maxis Makes Cut Backs

[gec05]

http://kotaku.com/5348112/maxis-layoffs-include-outspoken-spore-dev-chris-hecker

EA has recently announced that they laid off an estimated 24 people at Maxis studios this week. These people have worked on Spore, including Chris Hecker, who was responsible for handling the creature animations, as well as the being the one who some claim he was responsible for dumbing down Spore (which was in fact a decision by Maxis as a whole.) And was also the one who called the Wii a pile of poo, which he later apologized for.

It is not known exactly who else got the pink slip, but EA claims this is a move to help "focus" the studio.

So what does this mean for Spore? Though this could mean less expense and overhead for future development, it could also mean less horsepower for the company and more demand on those who stayed.

What do you guys think?

[pie]

Those spore devs need a job for money to pay for food, shelter, and all of those things. Why take the job, the actual source of money? But that's not a real concern, as they can always join another studio, but...... Anyways, less horsepower= lower quality games. So, yeah. We can expect less from future Spore expansion packs.

[TimeMaster]

EA is just a piece of poo.  Maxis shouldn't have them hiring and firing.  I wish EA never bought Maxis. >_>

But anyway that would just mean Maxis gets less staff.

[DaMuncha]

Sounds like a typical EA move to me. Buy companies, then disolve them. Maxis doesn't have a lot of time left. Soon Will Wright will be just another monkey or hes gonna do a Moleneux. I miss Bullfrog.

[Grangan]

I pretend to have complex, meaningful political positions like "abortion is bad" and "government is bad" and "school choice is good", but in the end, my only real position is "EA causes all the problems in the world, and if they were destroyed, the world would be perfect".

[Skyward]

Soon Will Wright will be just another monkey or hes gonna do a Moleneux.

Didn't WW already leave?

[Plank of Wood]

Sorry, why is everyone so suprised?

People lost their jobs in Maxis, yes. But guess what, it's a ressession. LOTS of people are losing their jobs. I'm sure theres some Woolworths forum somewhere on the internet where people are complaining about all of their shops shutting down, and that the stockholders should be purged for hurting the poor, innocent Woolworths employees.

Contrary to popular belief, there ARE some parts of the entertainment industry where the credit crunch can badly affect, and the Game making Industry is one of them. And lets be honest, EA may seem like a huge evil corperation but would you rather have NO EA departments at all because it went bankrupt? Especially considering they're downsizing ALL the departments or at least planning to. So stop moaning and be glad they didn't just shut the whole damned Maxis section down.

[gec05]

I wish EA never bought Maxis. >_>

If anything, it was Maxis' fault for joining them in the first place. Maxis has been with EA since Sim City.

[DaMuncha]

People lost their jobs in Maxis, yes. But guess what, it's a ressession.

EA Pulls in billions of $ every year. I think thats the least of thier worries.

[Hydromancerx]

EA is just a piece of poo.  Maxis shouldn't have them hiring and firing.  I wish EA never bought Maxis. >_>

But anyway that would just mean Maxis gets less staff.

Maybe "The Stupid Fun Club" can be the reborn Maxis in the way things use to be for original Sim City. Except with robots.

[Parkaboy]

Will Wright is still a consultant to Maxis and EA, so even after leaving he will still be involved.

I hear they fired about 24 people from the Emeryville studios (the one solely dedicated to the PC Spore), including Chris Hecker (chief animator, blamed by the community for the "cute" aspects of the final game). It seems they want to reduce the team since creating expansion packs doesn't demand a team as big as creating the game from scratch. It's still a shame, though. Chris was very cool to everyone that visited the studios on the Adventure Camp, and I really wish the nice people we met there aren't included on the cuts...

[Ghidoran]

Wasn't he one of the leading devs on Asymmetry?

[helio-G]

Its not EA's Fault that Maxis Released a pice of sh!t game. If Anything they are the onces Suffering because of the massive failure that game was, Sales wise. They took a huge capital hit. Funding the game for 7+ years only to have Maxis get Lazy and just release this dumb down game.

If its anybody's fault is MAXIS (Will Wright) For Allowing them Selfs To be MONEY GREEDY and selling them selfs to EA for the MONEY!

That's why Will Wright along with all the other 25+ people that worked on spore got fired.

[DaMuncha]

Riiiiiiiight 

[DarkDragon]

Its not EA's Fault that Maxis Released a pice of sh!t game. If Anything they are the onces Suffering because of the massive failure that game was, Sales wise. They took a huge capital hit. Funding the game for 7+ years only to have Maxis get Lazy and just release this dumb down game.

If its anybody's fault is MAXIS (Will Wright) For Allowing them Selfs To be MONEY GREEDY and selling them selfs to EA for the MONEY!

That's why Will Wright along with all the other 25+ people that worked on spore got fired.

This is one of those moments where this forum needs ratings, specifically dumb ratings.