It was just revealed that Electronic Arts plans to lay off around 5% of its workforce – which amounts to approximately 670 employees – in a bid to restructure the firm and amend its operating model. This news landed first on GamesIndustry.biz in the form of a memo circulated by EA’s CEO, Andrew Wilson.
The news comes mere days after EA announced a ‘small wave’ of layoffs following the closure of two mobile games. It was also revealed that Electronic Arts plans to ‘move away from’ the development of licensed IP that the company ‘does not believe will be successful in (the) changing industry’.
Waves Keep Crashing
In the last day or two, thousands of industry workers have lost their jobs as studios left and right issue waves of layoffs that are indicative of the ongoing struggles in the wider business. Most recently, the likes of PlayStation and ESL FACEIT suffered from sizeable layoffs that are effectively eliminating hundreds of employees from the books.
On GamesIndustry.biz, the news was broken that EA intends to strip 5% of its workforce from the company. It was estimated that almost 700 employees would be impacted by this wave.
The CEO of Electronic Arts stressed that there’s a desire to move away from licensed IP development – but this won’t impact games that are in production now, namely the Black Panther and Iron Man titles. It was claimed that the reason for this is:
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.
In the report published by GamesIndustry.biz, it was claimed that this restructuring effort – including redundancies – will cost Electronic Arts up to $165 million. This wave will bring the total number of EA employees laid off in the last year to around 11% of the entire company.
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Didn’t they cancel all their original games? Does this mean EA is done with the Disney license?
Hopefully this means return to Medal Of Honor, Jade Empire, SSX, Burnout, Def Jam, Black, Mass Effect, NBA Street, Dante’s Inferno, Mirror’s Edge, Bad Company, Dead Space, Titanfall, Fight Night, they should bring Thrill Kill back.
Microsoft should buy them they need the studios to support games and EA has been a huge part of Game Pass not to mention they have little live service titles
Microsoft needs to swoop in to buy EA just save them. Microsoft needs a big live service title EA has it, studio leadership EA has it, in house engine EA has it, and more mobile support which EA does. EA generates a ton for Game Pass so do it. Now that Xbox isn’t exclusive fully anymore this shouldn’t be a problem.
So are the Marvel games happening or are they cancelled? I remember hearing outside Iron Man and Black Panther they had 1 more Marvel game supposedly a fighting game but no developer was linked.
They should finally release Thrill Kill that fighting game right now would be awesome an AO fighting game with 4 player and that twisted dark story is just perfect it would make bank!
That would be cool especially since MK is ass and the story is played out
Maybe Dragon Age 4 is a hit? But they destroyed Mass Effect. I don’t know what else do they own? Sims, Apex, Dead Space, NFS, Burnout, Skate, SSX, there’s not a lot. I think they own Leisure Suit Larry that could be something since so many want a new Conker and a raunchy Larry game like the older ones would be great the Xbox one was good too.
EA needs to sell to Microsoft it’s the perfect match. Game Pass needs more and a price hike after that wouldn’t be as problematic and maybe then Microsoft could finally deliver good AAA games. They still outsource majority of work on games to other companies.
Even their own stuff is trash! Anthem was a failure, the Monster Hunter game they shut down, Madden has been bad for years, UFC 5 was mid still not Undisputed level, Battlefield has been trash for a while, Mass Effect Andromeda awful, NFS dead, the only thing that might do well is Apex. I believe they’re lying about Apex numbers though.
Bring back Def Jam with modern rappers and pay Kai Cenat to promote it watch how well it does or call it something else since Def Jam might be too old. Supreme, Lyrical Lemonade, or Verzuz would work.
That Black Panther game could be cancelled and the studio shut down since they can’t do anything else.
Are they bringing back the old stuff? Skate would have to not be live service, SSX should be open world and same style as SSX 3, NBA Street with modern players like Ja Morant and OG’s like Wilt and Doc would be fire. Def Jam too with all the modern rappers a ton more females to add and just different sounds from different regions.