EA Worker Pay Continues To Dwindle As CEO Picks Up $5 Million Bonus, Thus Creating Amusingly Tall Financial Graph

I honestly think it's about time we send EA to where we sent Ubisoft.

Boycott EVERYTHING EA until they no longer exist anymore. The industry will be better off.

An EA employee would have to work 261 years to match that, assuming EA doesn't reduce their salary further.

Man, I hate this company. I don't think I've bought an EA game since the GameCube era.

Looking at that graph ... that's exactly what logarithmic scaling is for Using median for incomes distribution is generally the way to go.

As for the income gap itself, obviously it is ridiculous by any measure of common sense and economic reasoning one might dare to apply. At the same time, it is by no means an issue related to EA specifically or the gaming industry in general. It's a tiny wheel in a giant machine that particular the U.S. has been happily fueling for about half a century.

Interestingly enough, Nintendo itself is actually a "weird" outlier in that respect. Having pay gaps by a ratio of 1000x is increasingly common for instance. And no, I am not kidding.

Awww, poor Andrew, only 5 Million?.... Sorry I just threw up in my mouth a little.....

Yes, that is an unfair discrepancy when their employees already likely work (and yes, actually work) for more than 40 hours per week without overtime pay.

https://media1.tenor.com/m/UUTVUk3Ghr4AAAAC/mario-kart-luigi.gif

Yeah, I'll keep on boycotting EA and Ubisoft. Scummy businesses don't deserve my money.

@Reztobi a lot of other gaming ceo make just as much or even more then andrew wilson should we boycott there companies as well ?

I’m guessing there’s a percentage correlation of budgets to how much a CEO receives.

As I hate EA for being monetized their franchise to death, but I still can't resist for the DLC for The Sims 4 PS4.

The median salary is still 117K though, not a bad salary if you ask me.

@Reztobi

"Boycott EVERYTHING EA until they no longer exist anymore. The industry will be better off."

I've been doing this for 20+ years, f_cker just gets richer.

@TheLucas

"median" can be more misleading than "mean."

but yeah I'd take a six figure salary and not stand on my feet 9+ hrs a day in 100°f heat 👍👍

(for example if ive got 21 employees, and 11 of them make 100k/yr and the other 10 make 10k/yr, then i can safely say the "median" is 100k, which is a lot more flattering than the mean which would be like 60k probably. ✌️)

EDIT - i thought about it some more, realized that a mean would actually be worse in this case (i think) because then youd have the CEO's pay included and that would inflate the mean well beyond probably what most people working there make. im not really a numbers person 😅

They’re too big to fail. As long as people keep buying fifa (and it’s micro transactions) or whatever it’s called now, which they will.

Yeah I don’t get a game if EA is making it, and this further shows how bad they are.

Every CEO everywhere is an overpaid drain on society that contributes nothing of value while exploiting the people who actually do.

Take that five mil, divide it amongst the remaining employees, and give everyone working there a nice bonus for providing you that 5 mil. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

To be fair, $117k sounds like a fair amount for a year's work. Now, I realise that US is a lot more expensive to live in than (at least most) European countries, but that is still multiple times more than what I get. 😅
That said, 30 millions is way, way, way too much for one person.

Why do the people with top 0.1% income need more and more money?

What a bunch of cheap skates, no wonder their games run like they were programmed by juniors.

I'm kind of surprised their median pay is even over 100k, though with inflation and the rising cost of living, I guess a six figure salary isn't as impressive as it used to be.

Regardless, I've never had a clue what kind of deranged math these companies use to decide that their handful of executives are worth the same as all their other employees put together. If the guys in charge were making two times, maybe even ten times what most of their subordinates made, you could maybe pass it off as their decisions just being that vital to a company's future, but I don't see any world where a guy signing papers and sitting in fancy meetings all day is offering hundreds of times the value of the people putting in the work their customers actually pay them for.

So he fired 400 people and then got a raise of 5mil bumping him up to 30mil a year?

Absolutely disgusting. We need to start pushing back! It shouldn't be legal to fire that many people when the CEO could save them with a pay cut.

@johnedwin Its not just about CEOs making extreme amounts of money.

In this case with EA, employees pay has been reduced year over year, while cost of living has gotten more expensive. In the meanwhile the CEO pay has increased!

There is no justification by giving the CEO exorbitant raises year after year, while at the same time reducing employees salaries!

I have been working in the IT Tech industry here in Europe since 2000, so for a good over 25 years now and my salary has always been going up year after year, never down.

So this here is just a prime example of typical US corporate greed and capitalism, that has spiraled out of control.

I think EA makes good games. But I also think they are a cancer to the gaming industry. Especially in the mobile market. When the video game industry crashes, we will be pointing at companies like this for the reason.

But this saddens me because it reminds me of a certain Nintendo CEO who cut his pay 50 percent to save his people from layoffs.

RIP Satoru Iwata, a true leader.

@smeggysmeg
No company is too big to fail. Look what happened to Sears and Blockbuster Video.

@SwitchplayerJohn it helps you evaluating your own life perhaps. And the world we live in?

The six figure salaries for the regular employees seem pretty solid. The 30 million seems excessive but he has been put in charge of a company with over 14,000 employees. Without peer information, the charts don't highlight anything unique to EA.

Hehehe, I cought this one doing the rounds on Bluesky, yes.

Typical neoliberal behaviour. It's been destroying society for almost 50 years.
Thank you Nintendolife for sharing the news.

Meanwhile at Nintendo the CEO usually takes a pay cut if it came to that, but they actually give worker raises instead.

Also barely six figure salary isn’t impressive if you are relying on that for a family and not living in a roach motel class apartment with high crime. Keep in mind most of those entry levels likely have college debt to pay off as well. If your a game developer in overpriced area like Metro California then good luck to you if you didn’t win the RNG generation wealth spawn lottery.

@JohnnyMind Nintendo is a Japanese company and it’s not a good look in Japan for a CEO to make so much more than employees. And Nintendo’s CEO fairs better than a lot in Japan relative to the median employee wage. For all the flack Japan gets in regard to working long hours, employers tend to have much more regard for employees than in the US.

@Reztobi That's impossible with all the drones playing FIFA/FC ever year despite the fact that the game hasn't changed for the last decade. They literally make billions from those gamers feeding them their money for loot box card packs. The whole practice is gross but as long as drones keep buying it, they'll keep EA afloat.

Insane. No one deserves that level of pay. And these CEO oligarchs are dumbfounded and wonder why so many masses of people hate them. Ugh. Tax the rich.

We should really destroy the culture of this sick inequality ASAP. I understand giving someone more, but not THAT MUCH. We should respect all people who work on company's success. CEO is important, but not 1000 times more than the others.

This is gross but also not unique to EA,.

I do think the people at the top should be paid more. I've run my own company before and believe me, it's stressful and there is a lot of risk.
That being said though, I think there should be a cut off, such as the highest paid person can't make more than 5x the lowest paid person.

@Arawn93 it depends where you live. If you are in Montana you can live in a castle with 6 figures but if you are in Silicon Valley, you’ll be in a roach filled apartment

As a guy who works in the corporate world I can say with certainty that most CEOs are filth. Apparently it’s no different at EA.

For the "I'd take $117k in a heartbeat" crowd.

Keep in mind about 1/3 of that goes to taxes. And the US is basically the last industrialized country on Earth w/o taxpayer universal Healthcare so that's a chunk as well.🤮

So what you are left with is about enough to send your kid to a private college for a year. If you have 2 kids that's 8 years of your life earning just enough to pay for education, so the college presidents can also have million $ salaries.

https://www.bankrate.com/loans/student-loans/average-cost-of-college/

And then your kids will still have probably $40k each in college debt b/c that's basically all done behind the scenes, so they'll have to work another year just to pay that off, though in actuality they'll be paying that for 10 years b/c the bank presidents need their million $ salaries as well.

https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/average-student-loan-debt/

It isn't EA, it's capitalism after the class war is over and the rich won. 🤑

@JohnnyMind also Nintendo Co has worked to reduce crunch time for their workers too. I believe the other divisions have a similar work-life balance policy. The same can’t be said for their partners, like Bandai Namco, but Nintendo takes the old Japanese mantra of employee treatment very seriously. Compared to everyone else in the industry, they seem to lead this category with ease. Plus, it explains why Nintendo keeps so many finished products in the reserves too

@rjejr $117K meant a lot more 20-25 years ago. Depending where you lived in the US, you’d be considered almost upper middle class. In major markets, you would be just in there. Today, $117K doesn’t mean much if you live in a major city in the US. Especially in California and Florida.

“EA Sports - We have no shame”

@progx And NY. Gotta represent. 😎

I've been arguing the guy running for mayor in NYC who's reportedly worth like $200k/yr isn't even upper class, that's the higher end of middle class these days, while others are calling him an elitest communist. Not exactly sure how that works but nothing makes sense these days. 🤷‍♂️

Not saying anyone should turn down $117k, it would be nice, and if you're a single lad buying a round for your mates down at the pub you're probably feeling like you hit the jackpot, but as a married adult w/ kids and a $400k mortgage that $117k is basically getting by. Which is better than not getting by, but as you said, it's like $40k 50 years ago. For most people it probably seems like more than it is. Well at least in a major Metropolitan area in the US.

Of course on the other hand I don't even know what you need $30m/yr for? Throwing your own Diddy freakoffs? 😂

The rich get richer and we get the picture

@rjejr no, I got what you’re saying. Even smaller cities like Pittsburgh, $117k might do better there than Philadelphia, but not by much. And smaller cities, good luck finding a job that’ll pay you $117k. There’s so much pay disparity in the US, most people here even have a hard time understanding it. Places like Charlotte and Denver are becoming more expensive to live, the latter has a higher cost of living than San Francisco and LA. I couldn’t fathom how you could live on $117k in those giant markets, especially when your water bill could run about $300-900 per month alone 😳

And yeah, $200K in NYC might just be surviving. Rent for a tiny apartment could run you $2000 per month minimum. If Zorhan was upper class in that city, he’d be making way more than that. An intensely gross amount to be considered upper class there

This guy’s income sounds very unstable if it can change by 5 mil in just one year.

He should consider supplementing his income by getting a Patreon account.

Or an OnlyFans.

@Maxz he probably already has an onlyfans.

@Reztobi it's about time? Now? It's been about time for that since 2002. At least. And that year is as much as an estimate as their bookkeeping numbers...

@progx Denver has been one of the most expensive cities to live in for a while now. At least a decade, since legalization.

Mildly funny aside about NYC, but still relevant, there's a very out of touch part of the movie Materialists, where a character who lives in a posh brownstone appartment says she only makes 80k a year. There's no way she'd afford to live as comfortably as she does there. It felt like a big hole in the movie that gets glossed over.

We need more CEOs like the exception that was Satoru Iwata.
Not only he was a programmer that had his CEO duties, but also accomodated some time to partake in skits on Nintendo Directs, do interviews with developers on Iwata Asks and, most importantly, he did listen to his workers and, if could, help programmers.

Heck, remember that Game Center CX mini-episode where Iwata goes to the GCCX game room to play some Balloon Fight? Arino was surprised he went to them to Tokyo instead of them going to him at Kyoto.

And not a peep from SplitFiction to say CEO shouldn't take that pay?????? Reason another reason I will not buy Splitfiction.

B-b-but it's not 39 millions anymore, so he has ACTUALLY made a HUGE sacrifice

A very humble man indeed

@roboshort I'm reminded of when Iwata took a 50% paycut to avoid layoffs in the company. It may be another part of the Japanese mentality of doing things, but when you do it with as much class as he seemed to, it stands out as something more than simply the culture.

The "worker" is still making a $100,000 or more per year, so that is not bad but I understand the point.

@theberrage Agreed about Iwata.

However, we spent most of the later 2000s pointing fingers at EA and Activision until there was amost a bubble burst like there was in '84. Then, we attributed the saving of the industry to indie devs... who almost promptly handed the reigns right back to companies like EA and Activision so they could go back to exactly this behavior.

And we, as players/fans/consumers/customers? We let it happen with a shrug, because, well, we were getting games. So why should we care. Now look where we are again. The parallels are kinda ridiculous, you'd almost think we didn't learn a thing.

Who needs this much money

$117,000 is lord knows how much more than I earn in a year, and I have on more than one occassion fallen gravely ill due to overwork. What do I have to do to earn even that much?

@BoomingEchoes I'm curious how the indie devs "promptly handed the reigns right back"?

Indie devs were just doing what they do, making fun, experimental games. It just happened that consoles finally had a way to support them with digital storefronts and downloads. Previously they'd have to sell to a publisher to afford the cost of printing and distributing physical media, which meant most didn't or couldn't and so stuck to PC.

Because of that, people saw these small games doing much more interesting things and bought them, which boosted the industry and widened the audience again who, after a little indie palette cleanser or two, then bought the big company games again.

You talk as if it were all planned by indies to save the industry, and as if they then gave up? Which I'm really confused by. There was no onus on them to do or not do anything, they were just making cool games and continue to do so.

@Anachronism Relevant, I swear, but in the movie Materialists, about the horrific conditions of dating, there's a whole part where it's broken down that 100k is basically not even considered "6 figures" anymore. That you're basically lying about making 6 figures simply because you happen to hit 100k.

Same seems to apply for the cost of living situation, which is kinda the point of it being a factor in the movie too. Things being what they are with economics, the bar is higher and it's coming down to very specific terminology gymnastics to skirt around what's survival and what's actually impressive.

Personally, I remember when making 60k was considered "comfortable," and that seriously doesn't feel like that was all that long ago. We slid pretty far, pretty fast

@BoomingEchoes that’s true. Colorado Springs is quickly getting there too. Colorado doesn’t seem to lose any steam for growth, comes at the cost of living getting expensive sadly.

I did want to see The Materialists, I’ll have to add it to my weekend trip to the theaters.

Not surprised to read this story about EA. With Activision under Microsoft’s ownership, EA wants that title of overpaying executives in the gaming industry more than getting out decent games.

Wonder why no one wants to cover the fact Gabe Newell at Valve has built his fifth super yacht?

@Ogbert A good most of those dev sold their companies to EA (and such), actually. That's how.

Instead of being the otherside of the fulcrum to balance the industry, they did the stereotypical silicon valley thing of selling themselves for the big nut, almost as soon as they could.

I also didn't say the indies planned to save anything. I said we put it on them. And even more literally writers like Totilo, when he was still with Kotaku. But all that extra stuff you put in about how we saw them, was exactly how they did it. They showed we didn't need the big machine to make good games... then they folded themselves right into it for a big payday. Is selling out giving up? A lot of people would likely say yes.

What incentive could there be for EA to act any differently? Shame? Lol

This is the logical conclusion of late… well, you know the name of the system we’re under.

Screw EA and their CEO

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a CEO making more money than usual. It’s wrong when employees get paid less than usual.

I think we need to find a kinded heart leader who will lead the company with CARE and RESPONSIBILITY, not with GREED.

@progx I have a cousin that moved to Denver slightly after legalization from where we grew up in NY (not the city, but close enough), and there was a short time I considered moving there because of how much I dislike where I currently live. This all context to the fact I've looked into it enough at least 5ish years ago to feel put off by the price of things. But that's also sadly the norm everywhere now.

As for the movie: it's good, but a bit of a tough watch. There's things that were frustrating because it takes rules the movie establishes, then throws them out the window. Also, don't believe anything saying it's a romcom. It's a romantic drama. There's things in it that couldn't possibly be in a comedy.

Yeah you gotta work two jobs even if you have a “good job”. At least if you wanna retire ever.

This is why it's such bs when these companies raise the prices of games due to development costs. The big wigs are raking in more cash than ever while the actual developers are continually getting screwed. More layoffs in the industry means more cash for the out of touch executives. What a joke

To paraphrase Jonathan Coulton, Code Monkey think maybe CEO wanna write 60th soccer sim himself…

@BoomingEchoes Which devs are you referring too? As I remember it the big ones were:

• Jonathan Blow / Number None with Braid, remaining independent.
• Team Meat with Super Meat Boy who were initially MS exclusive but remain independent.
• Phil Fish with Fez who is not really around anymore.
• The Behemoth with Castle Crashers who remain independent.
• Mike Bithell with Thomas Was Alone who remains independent.
• Playdead with Limbo who remain independant.
• Twisted Pixel with 'Splosion Man who sold to Xbox and then later rebought their independence.
• Southend Interactive with IloMilo who I don't think are around anymore.
• That Game Company with Journey who were funded by Sony but remained independent.
• Giant Sparrow with The Unfinished Swan who were also Sony funded but I believe are still independent
• Image & Form with Steamworld Dig who joined Thunderful much later with indie dev Zoink and indie publisher Rising Star.
• Choice Provisions (formerly Gaijin Games) with the Bit.Trip games who remain independent
• Chair Entertainment who, with Epic, made Shadow Complex and did sell to Epic later.

Those are the guys I remember being the big hitters in the indie boom that people credit for saving the industry. As far as I'm aware one was bought by Xbox and then left again, one joined Epic and the rest remained independent to this day or their closure.

Who are you referring too?

@HammerGalladeBro I miss the days of Iwata, Reggie and Shibata. CEO and director level people with character. Miyamoto et al are a given and glad they are still actively at the front of the media.

Just comparing Bowser to Reggie, we never see him. Granted I watch the European directs so could be wrong.

@BoomingEchoes I had the opportunity to go the home of a CEO of a major corporation in Japan for dinner before and it was a bit surprising. It was just a middle-class home. He bought the home probably in his early 30s and just stayed there. That would be unthinkable in the US. But things work differently in Japan, and you have to view everything through a different lens. Though those in IT like Masayoshi Son tend to be more like the type of CEO you'd see in the US.

That graph is both hilarious and sad. Hope the EA execs see this and feel a little bit of guilt.

The CEO could distribute just one of his 31m to staff as a nice gesture and likely wouldn’t even notice it was gone.

Looking at this graph I realise I must be grossly underpaid

@Anti-Matter I think we need to find a kinded heart leader who will lead the company with CARE and RESPONSIBILITY, not with GREED.
Let's see... NINTENDO - you asked and you got.

How about we take greedy EA and push it somewhere else.

@datamonkey The CEO could distribute just one of his 31m to staff as a nice gesture and likely wouldn’t even notice it was gone.
But but .... my Yacht needs to travel around the world.....please let me have my 31mils. Says...BP....

@Ogbert I'm not going to waste my time trying to look into things the internet probably didn't bother to save. I know what I'm talking about and I don't have to prove it to you because you decided to cherry pick a sentence I said about a snapshot of the late 2000s and blow it up into this whole battle you've decided to wage with me, when the point of the whole thing is here we are again well within the bounds of a similar situation, but without even a glimmer of light this time to feel like it'll lift things back out of it.

If you want someone to tell you you're right, fine, you're right. Leave it alone.

@BoomingEchoes In @Ogbert’s defence, I don’t think he’s trying to ‘wage a whole battle’ with you; just have a discussion about a topic while giving some relevant examples.

You don’t have to prove anything, but given that you made the original claim, it would be nice if you could prove something — or could at least be bothered to make the effort.

As an ignorant outsider, I could be persuaded either way, but I’m heavily leaning towards the party that has actually tried to substantiate their claims.

You could well be right, but so far you’ve failed to be very convincing.

@johnedwin

"a lot of other gaming ceo make just as much or even more then andrew wilson should we boycott there companies as well?"

you name it, I'll boycott it 😂 it'll be fun! like a game.

Most of the time when the same CEOs get fired, they get compensated with millions in company stock. I always find that news to be despicable. Hey do a terrible job that effect lots of people. We'll lay them off and reward you.

As bad as CEOs are, imagine what the board room is making!

I will say this, a lot of people are posting stuff specifically about EA like they're the only company that does this. Take a look around. It's every major corporation. We all buy stuff from these corporations and many of us work for them too. I'm not justifying it. It sucks! I'm just saying.....

Nothing amusing about it.

Loathsome to see CEOs get the best wages whereas real hardworking staff barely get Pennies. Wage disparity these days is truly abhorrent and needs to change for the better.

I get that the CEO's salary is way too high and is ridiculous - no disagreement there at all.

I don't get how a boycott would fix anything. Wouldn't that just lead to thousands of employees of EA being laid off? Would it affect the CEO at all? Why do we want to harm the people making the games b/c the CEO is earning way too much? Why take it out on them? How would EA going under affect anything? How has Ubisoft falling apart helped the problem?

Honestly - I've got lots of questions b/c the actions suggested here seem to be all about harming the employees, but IDK how they would affect the CEO or the industry (or business in general). It seems like we need a different approach to really change things?

@TheLucas yeah I’d take that salary

@Friendly
I can tell you why, based on my own experience:
Becoming rich is comparable to putting on Tolkien’s “The One” ring. The more money you have, the greater the fear becomes to lose it. It started messing with my character and destroying my empathy.

Y’all keep boycotting, you’re doing great!

$32K pay cut to the median employee while the CEO gets a $5M raise, nice little snapshot on the state of the economic system.

@sethfranum haha yeah probably at least a little bit of truth to that 😂

We need to get rid of these human parasites already. In no way do modern rich CEOs and Execs benefit the world or help it go round whatsoever. All they do and literally ALL they do is stomp on the common man while they desperately try to stay afloat while sucking them dry of their money like mosquitos so they can add an unnecessary extra million dollars to their already 90 trillion dollar wallets. They’re an outdated concept that does nothing but hurt and ruin lives and they need to go.

@progx "Rent for a tiny apartment could run you $2000 per month minimum."

You mean your share of your rent when you split an apartment w/ 2 other people would be $2k. 🤑

https://www.apartments.com/rent-market-trends/new-york-ny/

@rjejr yikes. I was hoping my conservative guesstimate would’ve landed close. I know there are two bedroom apartments going in the Pittsburgh area for $1000-1200. My old house I rented, which was a three bedroom with a finished attic is now renting for $1500 versus $859 I paid from 2017-2020; it’s about 950 square feet.

@AG_Awesome IDK, if I was making $117K and the company offered me a $344.83 annual performance bonus ($5 mil divided by 14,500 employees), while I certainly wouldn't be too proud to accept it, I'd probably be more likely to describe it as "insulting" or "pathetic" than "nice."

Pay gaps like this are gross and should be illegal. Companies only care about the shareholders and treat employees as disposable trash.

@johnedwin Depends. How much are the employees making? Is there as much of a discrepancy?

@emikoala Yeah. You’re right. They should have just let the CEO keep it. My bad.

@AG_Awesome Nah they should have taken MORE off the CEO's pay. There's a good $20 million or so more I reckon he don't need

@BoomingEchoes I’m not at all asking for someone to say I’m right, I’m trying to make sense of your initial statement. I apologise it any f it came of as aggro that was not my intention. And it’s not a small part of what you said it’s the crux of your statement, that these indie devs saved the industry but then immediately sold out and condemned it again. It’s quite an accusation whether you say they meant to do any of it or not.

I’m trying to understand why you are making that statement because to my knowledge it isn’t true. So either I am missing a huge piece of the puzzle in which case I am genuinely asking you what that is. Or, as it is sadly seemingly more likely, it was a false claim and now you are unable to back it up and are choosing to be aggressive instead of bringing receipts or admitting you were wrong.

So please, I ask you nicely and politely, tell me what indie devs from the late 2000’s indie boom that were credited as helping to save the industry then immediately sold out? Because I am not cherry picking my examples I am listing the top, most notable indie devs of that period to my knowledge.

If I am wrong I will gladly admit it, I would rather learn and move on than continue to spread a falsehood. But all you are currently giving is anger over someone daring to question you and trying to flip that back on to me being the unreasonable one.

Edit:
Actually I just thought I missed a few:

• Tommorow Corporation / 2D Boy with World of Goo remain independent
• Shin’en with Fast Racing remain independent
• Mojang with Minecraft DID sell to Xbox much later though
• Mossmouth with Spelunky who remain independent
• Supergiant with Bastion who remain independent

So again, most remain on dependant and didn’t “sell out” bar Mojang who did it way later, famously holding out for an insane amount.

@Maxz thank you, I appreciate you commenting here as you are right it’s not my intention.

Honestly it’s ok to be wrong so if I am wrong I would like to know so I can learn and move on. I don’t know why I am being met with this aggression? It feels like a big accusation to put on these devs, I don’t think it’s bad of me to ask for evidence and examples? Especially when to my knowledge it’s incorrect for the majority of the people I believe they are referring too.

But If my comment reads aggro or rude, it was not my intent and I apologise for it.

Luigi save us all

@emikoala Heck, divide 25 mil of his 30 mil and among them. He can just keep the bonus. Personally though, and maybe this is “wrong”, I prefer Luigi’s technique.

@Jack_Goetz EA GAMES!
challenge everything

Typo in the article, it's "remunerated" not "renumerated".

Dude I don’t normally get into these conversations but you guys need to stop inciting murder.

I don’t care who it is that isn’t funny.

Ah yes, I’m sure he works hard enough to have earnt enough in a year that would set most ordinary people up for life

@progx Real estate rentals and purchases are insane around here. My father in law is moving into a small apartment way out here on Long Island and it's considered "affordable housing" at $1,700 a month. I have a friend in Brooklyn who has a "rent stabilized" apartment he's been living in for like 20 years and I think he's still paying around $2,000 but when he moves out some day I'm sure it would be worth $3,000.

My kids are never moving out at this rate unless they get roommates. Or move far away. I don't see how it's sustainable.

@Emacster I hope Luigi shows up with his Poltergeist 3000.

@Lizuka and, the easiest to replace with AI! And I heard the robots don’t need to eat or sleep like those lazy CEOs…

Everyone’s mad at the CEO bonus, but missing how this actually works.

He didn’t just get a $5m cash gift - it’s mostly performance-based stock. If EA does well, he earns more. If it doesn’t, he doesn’t. That’s standard in big public companies.

The drop in “median pay” doesn’t mean pay cuts. It likely means EA hired more junior staff, which pulls the median down, not that existing employees got paid less.

That tall graph looks wild, but it’s misleading without context. This is how CEO comp has worked for decades - it’s not a scandal, it’s business as usual.

$30 million! Damn I’d love to know what this guys job entails daily. And didn’t they just lay people off and close a studio?? As a business owner I wouldn’t dare! You’re nothing without solid talented reliable employees!! I’m sure he’s not doing any programming or tech work, strolls in at 10am & leaves by 4. Smh just terrible!

Not really bothered by this, the median CEO pay is 17 million while employee pay is 85k. Unfortunately "we" would have to boycott almost everything and it wouldn't really change anything.
Kinda seems silly to make the much money per year, but I still watch pro football and hockey. If you boycott EA, just start looking at other companies and see if you are willing to boycott even more.

@JohnnyMind Yeah but that pay cut was in the previous ceo’s tenure (may he rest in peace), the ceo pair this time around are more in line to traditional ceos so that pay cut will most likely not happen. They are the reason the Switch 2 is so developer friendly but not as consumer friendly.

just for comparison:
Shuntaro Furukawa, president of the most profitable videogame company ever, has an annual income of 362million yen (2.5million dollars)...

@Reztobi I have done for decades. Everyone just seems really slow on the uptake.

Man EA are such a ***** company.

“How workers are being renumerated”

The original numbers weren’t good enough?

Nice.

@SabreLevant He didn’t just get a $5m cash gift - it’s mostly performance-based stock. If EA does well, he earns more. If it doesn’t, he doesn’t. That’s standard in big public companies.
Performance that was from the programmers that made it what it is what performance did he do? EA survives because of microtransactions and nickel and diming it's patrons. Why doesn't the programmers get the 5 mils for doing the performance?

@SabreLevant The drop in “median pay” doesn’t mean pay cuts. It likely means EA hired more junior staff, which pulls the median down, not that existing employees got paid less.
Called cheap "Labors" sweat shops. If they really valued their employees they reward them for their work. CEO is a head mascot the work to make the magic in the games are the programmers laboring everyday to make it run and work.

@sethfranum Oh dear.

You're mixing up who creates value with how that value is scaled.

Yes, devs make the product. But a CEO’s job is to allocate capital, set direction, and make bets that decide whether a game even gets greenlit, whether EA doubles down on FIFA microtransactions, or pivots to subscription models, or invests in AI tools that make devs more productive. Those decisions are high-stakes and affect **billions** in revenue. If they work, shareholders reward that with stock-based compensation.

The devs get paid salaries - often very good ones - regardless of how well the game sells. The CEO doesn’t. That’s the difference: developers are paid for effort; CEOs are paid for outcomes.

Also, calling EA a "sweatshop" is silly. EA’s average dev salary is over $100k. This isn’t Foxconn.

If you want a world where engineers run the company and make the big capital decisions, cool - but that’s not how public companies operate. And EA, like it or not, has been extremely profitable under Wilson.

This isn’t some injustice. It’s textbook executive incentive design.

EDIT:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/269696/revenue-of-electronic-arts-since-2005/ - Check that growth since 2013 if you don't believe me

EDIT2:
Valve is a good example of the model you're advocating for, but also consider the ramifications. EA employs well over 14000 people whereas Valve has fewer than 350, with fewer still being developers for Steam. They perform -really- well, but it doesn't gel well with the social values you might hold

(Full disclosure: I’m a software engineer working on financial analytics tools, with a degree in economics - I get the frustration, but this is exactly how exec comp is supposed to work. This isn’t the gotcha you think it is 😅)

Also @PJOReilly you have a typo in the article - "renumerated" should be "remunerated" : )

Remunerated.

Is this still a Nintendo gaming site? Good for him if the company sees enough value in his work. Personally I don’t see any value in EA games and haven’t for a long time so I don’t buy them.

Why’s the guy complaining about them using Median instead Mean average? Mean would give a much more misleading number. Mean doesn’t work very well when you have a few very high data points. It would lead to the mean averaging being over a million probably, which nobody except a few people actually earn.

@SabreLevant No they created this for themselves not the employees. That's name of the game here.

Fair enough, if that's what they want to do, by all means, I don't support them, only their Indie program games are any good anyway these days. I haven't cared for their major ones. Squadrons was fair. later Battlefields have been ok but not dived into them really. I got a few NFS games out of curiosity as I already experienced enough of the key circuit/linear ones of the series I enjoyed.

Unluckily I only buy older non EA account related EA games pre-owned as that's when they made/published better games. Nothing modern at all besides what Titanfall 2.

Ubisoft I just turn network settings off for Prince of Persia Lost Crown and Immortals Fenix Rising and they work fine. XD

@sethfranum That doesn't even make sense as a reply to what I posted, I think you're seeing demons where there are none?

B-but the CEO is down a whole 8 million from 2021!! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE RICH CEO'S!?!?

Imagine complaining about someone getting compensated a small fraction of the -billions- the company gained because of their tenure.
But instead, people want EA to vanish, and have ~14k people lose their jobs? How does that help anyone?

@SabreLevant Not sure why you're defending them so hard. They make terrible products, which comes from the top down. They need to be boycotted and either rebooted or they need to fail and shut down. Sadly, keeping people employed to continue an awful corporate machine is just not benefiting anyone.

@BinaryMessiah Not defending EA really, they make products that you and I don't care for, but it's indisputable people want them given the crazy growth. Am just tired of people trying to make a villain out of a CEO because they think employees are somehow oppressed?