Board Thread:Off-Topic/@comment-49.183.197.31-20160726103558

So I was recently made redundant and spend a fair amount of time looking for a new job. The thing about recruitment ads is that they can tell you a lot about the strategic direction a company is moving as they need new people to execute these strategies.

FM advertise all their jobs on linked in (under the EA banner). Now I am not in a field that would mean I apply for a job at EA but I find it interesting to look anyway and make some guesses about what they are doing. From looking at the job list over a sustained period of time here are some of my casual observations;

1. FM hire a lot of people - They are not a small operation and given salaries in Melbourne are fairly decent there must be a lot of players making IAP to fund it.

2. Software Quality - A constant complaint I see on the Wiki is that RR3 is too buggy. Personally I think it has significantly improved over the last 12 months, still not perfect but there was a period when a lot of software QA/testers were hired and now it seems better, coincidence?

3. Game design and direction - There was recently a couple of ads for game designers, with particular experience in developing tracks. Could we see a wave of new tracks added to the game?

4. Another requirement of these game designers was significant experience in commercial success. This means to me they are going to have hard sales targets. So highly likely GC requirements of this game will continue to increase trying to get people to make IAP. My thought long term is that 100% completion as a free only player will deliberately be made impossible.

5. Looks like FM have moved their office to a nice new building by the water (looking for a facilities manager). The bars and restaurants here are a bit pricer that where they used to be so further evidence they will need to raise more revenue through IAP to pay for their chicken and avocado sandwich at lunchtime.

Just my thoughts, Cheers. 