The gang talks about Cities: Skylines 2, Microsoft and the FTC, and Biden’s high speed internet bill, as well as the following news:
All that and listener feedback.
Episode 730 has been lost to time. It was recorded on August 14, but instead has been folded into this episode.
The post Episode 731: No 730 first appeared on Gaming Podcast.
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Halloween is a scary time of year, no less when you’re posting a $310 million net loss. EA CEO John Riccitiello sees “weakness” at retail in October and we’re betting this isn’t the end of the road of sorrow for game publishers around the globe.
Electronic Arts isn’t unfamiliar with bad times and we’re sure to see them make constant adjustments to their headcount, game releases and press as the economy goes into a bit of a slump. Although the game industry won’t see as big a hit as the financial market, everyone is going to watch their spending during slower economic times.
That slowness is a red flag for the mega-publisher, which says it’s “proactively making cost adjustments now.” One of those adjustments is the axing of some 600 EA employees across the globe. (Kotaku)
Last year Electronic Arts lost a “small” $195 million during the same time, not exactly a gold star on the financial records but it sure looks better than this loss. A few games may crumble under the economic pressures, Tiberium for example, but let us not forget the good times! EA posted some nice figures for Spore, Madden NFL 09, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.
So, they mixed a few sequels with a few new franchise hits and gave gamers some pretty hot titles for the year. Of course, hot titles in our hand do not always translate to positive revenue in theirs.
Echo’s of Doom will be live when the systems come back for maintenance. WorldofWarcraft.com was down for a bit today, probably to revamp and push the Lich King messages (which now splash the homepage prior to landing).
This patch brings a crap ton of content to the game including a lot of the lich king updates for character classes, user interface changes, calendar and other crazy awesome stuff. When you start the client, now, you’ll notice the front screen has changed to promote the Lich King content; it now resembles the client for all those in the beta.
The only downfall to the beta will be, once again, re-distributing your talent points. It’s free, so now is your time to re-spec and get ready for battling death knights in our near future!
