Electronic Arts is laying off hundreds for ‘restructuring’
The publisher is reducing its staff count by 6%, resulting in hundreds of lost jobs.
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What you need to know
More jobs are being cut in the gaming industry this month, with hundreds to be affected.
Assharedby GamesIndustry.biz, publisher Electronic Arts (EA) is cutting its workforce by 6%, or around 774 staff, based on its last headcount of 12,900 workers worldwide. EA also plans to re-evaluate how much real estate the company currently uses.
“As we drive greater focus across our portfolio, we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy, reviewing our real estate footprint, and restructuring some of our teams,” said EA CEO Andrew Wilson.
These layoffs come as EA has already laid off hundreds of quality assurance (QA) testers who primarily worked onApex Legends. This came just weeks beforeopening an additional office for developer Respawn Entertainment in Wisconsin, an office that is also going to primarily focused on supporting Apex Legends in the years ahead.
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In total, this marks around 1,000 staff and contractors affected by layoffs at the company. 2023 has marked notable layoffs across all sectors of tech, with Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and many others also laying off employees in the first quarter of the year.
EA has had a solid start with game launches in 2023, with the Dead Space remake seeing critical acclaim and commercial success, being number one on the U.S. sales charts in January andnumber three in February. Looking ahead, EA will be launchingStar Wars Jedi: Survivoron April 28, 2023, a game that is widely expected to follow in the success of its forebear, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Windows Central’s take
The continual number of layoffs happening across the gaming industry (and the rest of tech) is nothing short of depressing. Thousands upon thousands of people are losing their jobs, and many who were laid off months ago still don’t have a new roles.
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My distaste for layoffs at companies turning in huge profits aside, I hope everyone at EA that is affected lands on their feet, and I hope the gaming industry sees a big boom that turns this perceived slump in jobs around soon. I won’t be surprised if we see even more workers look to unionize in the coming months, following in the example of groups like theQA workers at Bethesda under Microsoft.
Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter@SamuelTolbert.
