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How to save SWTOR, and yourselves, Bioware.


Psygenic

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Your post demonstrates a complete void in the understanding of not only how shareholder profit-driven companies operate but the nature of vendor-consumer relationships.

 

You demonstrate that you care more about EA's profit margin than Bioware staff or this game.

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You demonstrate that you care more about EA's profit margin than Bioware staff or this game.

EA is a FOR PROFIT corporation. EA is concerned with profit. Period. They don't keep the Austin studio open as a charity or a tax write off and they don't keep SWTOR open to please it's few loyal fans. When the bottom line says it's no longer making money, they'll terminate the game and not give a second thought about it. Or, if their accountants determine that Austin is a money pit, they'll close the Austin office and transfer SWTOR to a team they already have in a profitable location.

 

This has nothing to do with caring about EAs profits - it's common sense.

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EA is a FOR PROFIT corporation. EA is concerned with profit. Period. They don't keep the Austin studio open as a charity or a tax write off and they don't keep SWTOR open to please it's few loyal fans. When the bottom line says it's no longer making money, they'll terminate the game and not give a second thought about it. Or, if their accountants determine that Austin is a money pit, they'll close the Austin office and transfer SWTOR to a team they already have in a profitable location.

 

This has nothing to do with caring about EAs profits - it's common sense.

 

So you're saying that Bioware staff shouldn't use collective bargaining to secure their jobs and more resources to develop games because EA (of all companies) might lose a few dollars.

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So you're saying that Bioware staff shouldn't use collective bargaining to secure their jobs and more resources to develop games because EA (of all companies) might lose a few dollars.

 

Linemen working for the phone company and machinists in auto plants form unions.

 

Software developers don't scrape by on $11/hour. There are therefore damn few white-collar high-tech unions in existence, and the reason for that is salaried compensation in the market pushes compensation higher, not lower. High skill begets high wages, so you see few unions in high-skill/high-professional industries.

 

The downward pressure on wages rests in the predominantly menial and repetitive jobs. It's there that motivation exists for people participating in those employment circles to unionize.

Not high tech.

 

High tech has only one downward pressure on jobs, and that's the hiring of H1-Bs, which we all know has been somewhat curtailed with this administration, and we're currently under the least amount of unemployment, including in high tech, in decades. That gives highly skilled workers one thing that the machinists and linemen don't have -- industry mobility. Highly skilled workers have high job mobility -- they can move to similarly lucrative positions at other jobs should compensation at their current company fall below current market standards for that compensation.

 

Low-skilled and semi-skilled people lack that job mobility, so their wage protection manifests in the form of unions.

But not in high tech.

Edited by xordevoreaux
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So you're saying that Bioware staff shouldn't use collective bargaining to secure their jobs and more resources to develop games because EA (of all companies) might lose a few dollars.

So you think they need to unionize and just demand more money to develop this game? You honestly think that's how this works??

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Hopefully, Bioware staff would be able to gain more job security in case Anthem flops, and yes, more resources to develop this game.

 

But just go ahead and argue the point since that's all you forum people care about.

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Hopefully, Bioware staff would be able to gain more job security in case Anthem flops, and yes, more resources to develop this game.

 

But just go ahead and argue the point since that's all you forum people care about.

 

We are countering a nonsensical issue raised in a thread, and hopefully demonstrating the groundless premise to the OP.

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I'd assume it's serious. It's only a "troll thread" if you don't agree with what's being said, according to my observation on these forums. :)

 

I've seen threads I disagree with, but aren't troll threads. The 2 aren't the same but it's hard to tell in this one.

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So you're saying that Bioware staff shouldn't use collective bargaining to secure their jobs and more resources to develop games because EA (of all companies) might lose a few dollars.

 

:rolleyes:

 

Collective bargaining will do nothing to provide more resources to any companies product or service development.

 

Collective bargaining can serve a purpose in the context of labor rights for employees, but it would only do so if there are actually persistent labor rights violations taking place at Bioware.

 

Given the number of federal and state labor laws in place to protect against unfair labor practices now days... it is highly unlikely that unionizing the studio staff would do anything positive for the staff at all. In fact.. it is likely to negatively impact them as it gives them some form of "collective" bargaining power.. but also requires they submit to the will of the union, pay dues to the union, be forced to be converted to hourly labor and the restrictions that come with that, be at the whim of the union in terms of seniority vs job cuts by a company, having yet another supervisor (the "union steward") in the mix, etc. etc. In the modern era of labor.....unions do not protect jobs per se.. they simply protect better against unfair labor practices (like substandard wages, bias in treatment of an employee, no overtime pay, being forced to work long hours, etc). They cannot stop layoffs or redirection of resources by a company, only set some of the terms of such actions).

 

Besides.... historically unions have shown little benefit to professional "white collar" employees in most industries. I would suggest the OP become more familiar with the current state of labor laws and their inherent protections, as well as the history of collective bargaining in the non-blue collar segments of the national work force.

Edited by Andryah
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I've seen threads I disagree with, but aren't troll threads. The 2 aren't the same but it's hard to tell in this one.

 

Well unionizing is a very good method of protecting peoples jobs and livelihoods, I don't see how that's a troll?

 

And with the state of SWTOR now and the upcoming Anthem (we don't know how well it's going to do) it would be a good idea to secure your future as a developer.

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Well unionizing is a very good method of protecting peoples jobs and livelihoods, I don't see how that's a troll?

 

And with the state of SWTOR now and the upcoming Anthem (we don't know how well it's going to do) it would be a good idea to secure your future as a developer.

 

Because unless EA is breaking some kind of law in regards to how they treat their employees I don't see the justification. Hence me asking whether or not it's a troll thread, how they treat the game is bad but are they treating the employees bad? Anyway OP admitted to being a stupid idea so I'll stop here.

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Well unionizing is a very good method of protecting peoples jobs and livelihoods, I don't see how that's a troll?

 

And with the state of SWTOR now and the upcoming Anthem (we don't know how well it's going to do) it would be a good idea to secure your future as a developer.

 

Good developers have a good future, all unionization would do is make it harder to get rid of sub standard developers. Sorry but it is a bad idea. Job security is not owed, it is earned.

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If Anthem flops, they all get laid off anyway. Collective Bargaining won't save them. And if the development of SWTOR is an example of the expertise at BW:A, they'll deserve it when it happens.

 

What would have save SWTOR is real development of the content players were asking for 5 years ago. Living up to the promises made at the Guild Summit would have gone a long way to help, if they'd done it in 6 months or so. Now it's too late. New people aren't flocking to this game and staying long term. Players who have left are now invested in other games and aren't flocking back no matter what they put out. At this point all they can do is hope to create something that will keep the current players from leaving. And from what I can see, they aren't even doing a great job of that.

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