Perfect example of "it's not about the money, it's about control"
this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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Please don't be Bioware, please don't be Bioware...
It's already dead. Just let it go
The efficiency of capitalism. Spend god-knows-how-many millions of dollars and time, then realize you'd rather spend 125 million all over again just to go back and spend even more millions to hire back the dame numbers again in 1-3 years.
They make 5 billion a year, thats less than 2.5% of the money they make every year, it's a rounding error to make the spreadsheets look real good to the money lenders .
My company just let me go with a 6 figure package (x amount of pay + stocks). They could have easily kept me there for another year, but that's not as good for the spreadsheets.
I understand that, but still, the decision is a net negative. They are merely acting based on short-sighted insights.
Short term gains are king for stock value.
Yeah that was kinda my point. All that matters is what the spreadsheet looks like now. It would have probably been a net positive to keep me given they are only going to grow and spend a fortune on hiring and new stocks. That's a different spreadsheet though, I also live in a country where it's expensive to fire full time employees collectively, so it's not like they are paying these kinds of sums for everyone. It's pretty cheap to make things look good on paper.
Yeah, their whole goal is to look good on papers and stock market. Not to grow as actual company. They would rather cripple themselves than to strengthen themselves by slow growth...
"These charges consist of approximately $50 million to $65 million associated with office space reductions, approximately $40 million to $55 million related to employee severance and employee-related costs, and $35 million to $45 million in costs associated with licensor commitments," reads the filing.
The severance I get, but why is closing offices costing them so much. And what are “ licensor commitments?”
Every big UK company I have worked for doesn't own its building. They will typically agree to rent a building for 5-20 years at a fixed rate (longer times if its being purpose built for them) .
So I would expect this is paying out the rest of the rental agreements for a building to escape the building lease.
It is to do with financial reporting and the way asset and operational costs are reported.
cause commercial rental is a commitment, if you can't find another company to take over your lease, chances are you have to pay the majority of left over amount + penalty + restoration. Licensor commitments are similar but probably on tech/software licensing, ie. server rentals, Maya/Speedtree licensing agreement for the site, whatever cloud service they use for backup and share stuff, etc. Those at bigger scale aren't paid year to year like your regular indie studio just subscribe to Adobe/Autodesk for app uses per seat.
Probably all the hardware and shit they have at those offices, too. Likely all leased.
Maybe getting out of fixed leases?
Yeah, that would make sense. Commercial leases can be up to a decade long.
Welp, I already didn't like the games EA currently makes. Looking forward to going well out of my way to avoid buying anything they put out, no matter how good the reviews, trailers, etc. seem.