EA Laying Off Around 670 Employees - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2024 / 2,363 Views
Electronic Arts (EA) announced it is laying off five percent of its workforce. The publisher had 13,400 employees at the end of March 2023, which would mean around 670 people will be let go.
The publisher will be closing some offices and sunsetting some live service games, as well as moving away from developing future games based on licensed IP that they do not believe will be successful as the industry continues to change.
"Given how and where we are working, we are continuing to optimize our global real estate footprint to best support our business,' said EA CEO Andrew Wilson. "We are also sunsetting games and moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry.
"This greater focus allows us to drive creativity, accelerate innovation, and double down on our biggest opportunities — including our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities — to deliver the entertainment players want today and tomorrow. Lastly, we are streamlining our company operations to deliver deeper, more connected experiences for fans everywhere that build community, shape culture, and grow fandom.
"In this time of change, we expect these decisions to impact approximately 5 percent of our workforce. I understand this will create uncertainty and be challenging for many who have worked with such dedication and passion and have made important contributions to our company. While not every team will be impacted, this is the hardest part of these changes, and we have deeply considered every option to try and limit impacts to our teams.
"Our primary goal is to provide team members with opportunities to find new roles and paths to transition onto other projects. Where that’s not possible, we will support and work with each colleague with the utmost attention, care, and respect. Communicating these impacts has already begun and will be largely completed by early next quarter."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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The collapse of AAA gaming has begun
It really looks like we're going to pass last year's record number of layoffs within the first few months of this year. The industry is in a horrible state at the moment, and I don't see things getting better any time soon.
We really need a game developer's union.
Everyone is trying to announce their layoffs around the same time to provide cover for themselves and claim its an industry wide phenomenon.
One has to wonder what led to the industry wide failure in planning and corporate management that has led to these mass layoffs. It is aggravating that none of the executives that made the decision to overhire, invested in bad projects, and forced unfinished crap out the door will face any consequences, while regular people are losing their jobs.
It's mostly that shareholders expect infinite growth and after the covid crisis growth seems to have stagnated. Most big gaming companies aren't even in the red yet, but simply don't make enough profit. So management is cutting people as a short them measure to cut costs and by that make more profit. What the long term effects of these layoffs are is unsure at the moment. Could range from internal delays, cancelled projects, even more rushed games, scaled back ambitions (later released trough DLC).
I do not believe its just a bunch of hiring during COVID. Its that the industry has changed. Customers want for games have changed and the high cost of production has lead to a lot of companies realizing that that they cannot sustain such cost. The thing is, even you say invest in bad projects but no one knows its bad when developing it. A lot of the games are not bad they are just misses which happen in this very risky industry. A correction was coming and here it is and its probably not done yet.
Terrible time for those working in the gaming industry. This type of news is far too common.
Even though I think EA is terrible company (they won enough awards for it to say that they actually are), which mostly remains a big player in the Industry due to their football game, it's sad to see so many people being fired.
Andrew Wilson: "I'd like to thank all those managers who had to make the hard choice in sacrificing their staff so I can report to the share holders that I've found ways to increase their dividends by firing a bunch of non-union workers who lack the power of negotiation. You'll all be getting RSUs!"
At least, that's how I picture his off the record statement going.
First playstation now EA
The layoffs never stopped from last year. So, there really hasn't been a first for a while.
What many people also forget is the global situation. It isn't just a collapse of the industry — the pandemic affected so much. I know, my industry also took huge hits. There are more on the way but thinks will recover. Unfortunately, it means a loss off lots of jobs, but I said this after Microsoft laid of nearly 2000 people: "even with trillions, industries will suffer".
The end of days for game devs across all companies
Is this like the start of some financial calender, for all these lay offs?
End of, April is end of financial year. Many companies do this where they lay off people around now to make their April numbers look better to make sure the company looks like it's doing well when they announced end of year results. See Activision a few years back as a great example of this... while paying Kotick a massive bonus for this "success".
Simply shitty
