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CEO Andrew Wilson tells EA staff 5% of them will be laid off via empty and infuriating emailClose to 670 employees will be affected, as EA move to concentrate on their owned IP and online communities
Close to 670 employees will be affected, as EA move to concentrate on their owned IP and online communities
Image credit:Electronic Arts
Image credit:Electronic Arts
In Shakespeare’s Anthony And Cleopatra, said famous woman says “Give to a gracious message an host of tongues, but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt.” I.e., when you have good news you can go round the houses, but if you have bad news - like sending anall-hands email to the staff at EAto let them know that, less than a year afterthe last roundoflayoffs, a further 5% of them are getting booted - then you should just come out and say it as quickly and simply as possible.
Inanother message, EA’s president of EA entertainment and technology Laura Miele revealed that, related to this, they’ve cancelled the Star Wars FPS game Respawn were working on, though it sounds like a new Jedi game is in the works. They’ve also entirely shut down the Battlefield standalone single-player studio Ridgeline, after game director Marcus Lehto left (under his own steam).
It’s sort of bleakly funny to announce you’re focusing on online communties when everyone has just decided they have live service fatigue. I’m not sure that EA are in the best position vis. their own IP, either. A lot of the devs they jettisoned in 2023 were veterans at BioWare, meaning deep bites have been taken out of the knowledge base on some of EA’s most famous franchises. I’m not best placed to talk about sports stuff, but I understand players of sports games never have any complaints and there areno simmering issues that may snowball into huge problems one day.
I really hate the “our business is doing better than ever, which is why we’re getting rid of nearly 700 people” style of messaging, but I guess if executives said “listen, we didn’t grow sustainably during the pandemic and just massively overhired, so we’re having to scale back so our books still show financial growth”, then they might have to suffer some consequences themselves.
I’m sorry, I just get a bit more angry every time I have to write one of these up. There have already been loads of layoffs this year already. Just this week there was bad news forstudios at Sony, andfrom Supermassive Games. Check thelayoffs tagto enter the sad zone.
