Job Opportunities Shifting in Videogame Industry

Yesterday the world's largest videogame producer, Electronic Arts (EA), announced that 1) its second fiscal quarter earnings were as expected, and; 2) they are laying off 1,500 employees. In an industry that has seen nothing but spectacular growth through most of its existence, the biggest player of all has hit a plateau - at best. The move signals a shift in their business strategy and also suggests that new opportunities for video game design students may be shrinking - or at least changing platforms. Personally, I'm astonished at EA's $2 billion in annual operating expenses. Aren't computers supposed to be labor-saving devices?

On the same day that they announced layoffs, EA also disclosed their purchase of Playfish, a digital game producer that uses MySpace and other social networking sites for its platforms and customer acquisition. Playfish is an example of a significant transition now underway in the game business. The traditional distribution of games on DVDs is shifting to online downloads, and the platforms for game entertainment are multiplying like fruit flies. Online games are a growing market and the multiplayer products put out by EA and its competitors are only a piece of that industry.

EA has also declared its intention to produce fewer games with a higher percentage of blockbuster titles. They won't be betting on innovative products as much anymore, unless they're in the online arena. Digitally distributed games and components of packaged games are a relatively small but rapidly growing business for EA and the broader industry.

All of this indicates that the software engineering jobs in the videogame business are going to require knowledge of the opportunities - and limits - that characterize game play via broadband. While gaming has provided a multiplayer mode for years, the platform for those games was self-contained in disk that slid into the computer. In the future, Facebook or a similar site may be the platform of choice for game enthusiasts and the game manufacturers are going to have to adjust.

That's what EA is doing. So while the company is putting game marketing professionals and producers on the street, it may be looking for systems analysts in the future to help them figure out how to use someone else's internet portal for their products.