Andrew Wilson the man behind EI in the face behind EI is now making a lot more money for his efforts at Electronic Arts the question is should that worry us as gamers Electronic Arts is a company that I think many of us grew up on and that's many of us has seen kind of tumbled down the rabbit hole into a deep dark place especially lately we all know the facts by now they've been voted the worst company in America many many times they've been through many changes of leadership yet they are still at the top of the video game industry how can that possibly be I like to view EA as the smartest dumb company on the planet to me EA is more of a corporation at this point than an actual video game publisher because they don't seem to be in line with gamers best interest especially leading up to 2018 because 2017 was a horrific year for gamers if they invested themselves into EA's offerings and for those people including myself who fell into the trappings of holding on to our loyalty to EA and continuing to buy their games I don't think we made a mistake because quite honestly leading up to 2017 EA was really a good company I would say yeah they weren't great ethically but they still made really good games we're talking about games like Battlefield battlefront Mass Effect titanfall Need for Speed all those kind of games they came from EA some of those games turned into different beasts and they've kind of gone down dark roads but the initial inception for those games most of the time was really really great EA just has this way of taking really great products and twisting them into business products and that's a really big distinction that many people just are not keen on investors like games that make money especially games that make money over the long course of time gamers like games that are good ei just has a habit of mixing those two components together in the wrong way those are concoctions that please investors yet do not please gamers and if you want to be a really great company in this industry you've got to do both well is that statement actually true as we all know by now ei is a very successful company because they know how to make money the stock performance is great the growth of the company is fantastic and the financial side is very healthy so in this regard they are a very successful company but there's a big but they have proven with their video game development side which is the other side of the coin that they are not so smart in this regard because they piss off more people than they could possibly imagine it is very easy to pick apart EAS competencies on the gaming fronts because they've made so many mistakes especially lately battlefront 2 controversies of loot box microtransaction pay2win ripping contents out of games selling it later locking crucial game content behind DLC locking crucial content behind pre-order bonuses tying progression to money they've run the gambit of everything you should not be doing in a video game today but they're getting away with it because people are still buying their games this industry does not live and die by the hardcore gaming market you might be a hardcore gamer I might be a hardcore gamer we might want very specific things for the industry that are good for gamers but it all comes down to the common gamer and this is what does not get talked about very often the common gamer is gonna make EA live or die hardcore gamers are the minority the common gamer that is not informed of what's going on in this industry is the majority those people out there are not watching this video those people out there are still pre-ordering EA games and those people out there are still supporting microtransactions and paywall contents and video games with EA it's those people with their blind purchases and their incessant micro gambling habits that are fueling the fire for ei to do what they're doing today and what they're doing today is not good practice yes they effed up battlefronts and yes they butchered mass effect but the real problem is here they're still being rewarded by the common gamer for doing this stuff you combine all of that with their incessant need for origin access and what they're doing with subscription-based services this year and yeah they are unstoppable when you consider all this stuff how did all this stuff happen well of course Andrew Wilson spearheaded the new evolution of EA when he came on board in 2013 and as of 2017 he was paid a combined compensation package of about 20 million dollars per year to lead this expedition but guess what that number is not twenty million dollars anymore Andrew Wilson the leader of EA the CEO just got a 79 percent increase to his pay and he's now making thirty five point seven million dollars in total compensation for this year that is absolutely insane for a one year pay increase and by the way he's not even the highest-paid member of EA is the CEO that member is Patrick saterland and he just got a quadruple pay increase to forty eight point four million dollars in addition to four other executives that got special stock performance awards of around 7 to 15 million dollars this year these pay increases are specifically designed to incentivize and retain those employees because while they're doing so well so what does that say about EA in 2018 today we're announcing origin access premium that basically says that EA is winning if EA has this much money to pour into their leaders that are doing such a great job because they do not want them to leave that says that the company is on the right track but as gamers I think we can all agree that EA is not on track and they are complete we disillusioned from their consumer base and giving players what they want because they are so damn greedy on the other side of the table and I'm talking about the financial side the business side the stock side making investors happy making money expanding growing mopping up companies mergers and acquisitions making themselves the so-called leaders of this industry setting the trends making themselves in the spotlight and showing good face to consumers all the while injecting their games with for money items pre-order bonuses locked-off content DLC and all the while shutting down companies who do not work with them to achieve those goals in an age where companies out there are struggling to survive struggling to expand struggling to grow here's EA doing all the wrong things but getting rewarded in the process how messed up is this picture that EA one of the most beloved companies in the past now turn most frowned upon today is mopping up this industry is expanding at the rate they are and is giving their leaders the incentive to keep doing what they're doing with these massive salary payouts and massive compensation to their paychecks this is crazy to me but if I can boil down this story to one element it's the fact that EA does not want to lose Andrew Wilson because he has transformed their company into something that is spinning the wheels of money in 2018 I've got nothing wrong with Andrew Wilson in fact I actually met him one time in a convention he is really really great at leading companies and making them money but at the end of the story and at the end of that long dark road gamers suffer in the process and as much as we can continue to make these videos as much as we can be outspoken at what we don't want from this company and companies that replicate their processes there's just nothing we can do to stop this train subscriptions are the future live gaming is the future EA seems to be the future although their catalogue for 2018 2019 is looking quite the red at the moment still they know what makes the money they know what to commit to they know how to standardize their processes and they know how to lead their sports gaming market to supplement the other areas of their business it's my hope as a creator that we can band together during these times such as when battlefront twos controversy hits that we can further impact the way EA does business in a good way in a good light to show them what we want to make them realize change to come together and form these unified messages that EA can atleast take into consideration and what they do in the future has it worked yet are they willing to change will they change those are questions that hopefully in the future we're gonna get some answers for but if their presentation at EA is any indication I think the short term at least is a very rocky outlook I guess we just have to hope for the long term with the EA that they'll eventually come around and get back to how they used to be.
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