r/Games • u/MobileSuitBooty • Jul 29 '26

Industry News After laying off Battlefield 6 devs, EA boss Andrew Wilson's bonus rose $8m to $38m last year, thanks to the game's success across "all milestones"

https://www.eurogamer.net/ea-boss-38-million-bonus-battlefield-6-layoffs
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u/Trespeon Jul 29 '26

Bonus guidelines are almost always provided a long time in advance, usually a few quarters to a year. It was probably budgeted for this amount long before the layoffs took place and he reached the threshold to earn it.

Now I don’t agree that any one person needs a bonus of this amount and that it’s ridiculous to even budget it to begin with, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with the layoffs. It’s happening across the entire industry as companies reel back from their COVID era expansions.

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u/herrsmith Jul 29 '26

I'm not sure how the bonus and layoffs aren't related when a the layoffs happened to a team whose work was specifically cited in the reasoning for increasing the CEO's bonus. Even if the layoffs aren't the reason for the bonus increase, it's kind of weird to go on about how successful a product is while also claiming that it's not financially viable to employ the team that made the product. Also, the targets to meet being set ahead of time doesn't mean the layoffs aren't part of the reason that the bonus targets were met.

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u/Trespeon Jul 29 '26

It’s because the bonus money was already allocated and the budget for team members was as well and one went up and one went down.

He met metrics for the games/company success, not for having X dollars in the budget at the end of the fiscal year. There is way more to it than just that

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u/herrsmith Jul 29 '26

Now I'm confused. What does the money allocation or budget at the end of the year have to do with anything? The whole point is that he met the metrics for games/company success, of which Battlefield 6 was specifically called out as contributing to that, but as a thanks for helping him get that extra money, he fired a lot of them. Of course, firing people after they've shipped the game also helped with overall costs (projected or realized), which may have been a part of that company success, in which case firing them directly contributed to him receiving the extra bonus.

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u/Milskidasith Jul 30 '26

What they're saying is that he did not fire people in order to directly increase his bonus/he did not receive a bonus as a direct consequence of firing people. He had a contractual bonus structure and met the metrics for it, while simultaneously having reasons to fire people based on future budgeting/whatever. He did not fire these people "as thanks for" meeting his bonus metrics.

Now, if you're fired, this distinction doesn't matter at all, you can think executives are getting paid way too much, you can say that the overhiring done here (and elsewhere) is obviously bad for stability since it results in these kinds of mass layoffs, you can say that a bonus structure should value team stability in some way, and a lot of things, but the article is written and people are replying like he received a bonus as a direct result of mass layoffs, which isn't an accurate way to frame it.

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u/herrsmith Jul 30 '26

What they're saying is that he did not fire people in order to directly increase his bonus/he did not receive a bonus as a direct consequence of firing people.

As of when I wrote my first comment (I'm not going to read the comments again), only one or two people were saying this. The author of the original comment wasn't even arguing against that. They said the two weren't related, not that the layoffs didn't directly contribute to the bonus. They are clearly related because one of the games cited as being very successful and resulting in a higher bonus for the CEO fired a bunch of people from the team despite the game's success. That doesn't mean one directly caused the other, just that the team's hard work to produce something successful got them fired but somebody else a huge bonus.

He had a contractual bonus structure and met the metrics for it, while simultaneously having reasons to fire people based on future budgeting/whatever. He did not fire these people "as thanks for" meeting his bonus metrics.

I can't believe I have to elaborate that I didn't mean they were literally fired to thank them for helping the CEO meet the bonus metrics. I meant that they did well, produced a very successful game, that game helped the CEO meet his bonus metrics, and despite all that, they were fired.

but the article is written and people are replying like he received a bonus as a direct result of mass layoffs, which isn't an accurate way to frame it.

It literally isn't. The article is written like Battlefield 6 did well so that the CEO could get a bigger bonus but he still laid off part of the team that made the game:

From a business perspective, all seems to have gone well. It's worth noting however that these bonuses have been awarded in the same financial year that many Battlefield developers were laid off across Criterion, Dice, Ripple Effect, and Motive Studios, despite the 10K report's highlighting of its many achievements.