Some major job losses in the gaming industry have just been announced, as EA is laying off 350 people across marketing and publishing divisions.
In a public statement regarding the changes and layoffs, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said that “This is a difficult day. The changes we’re making today will impact about 350 roles in our 9,000-person company. These are important but very hard decisions, and we do not take them lightly. We are friends and colleagues at EA, we appreciate and value everyone’s contributions, and we are doing everything we can to ensure we are looking after our people to help them through this period to find their next opportunity. This is our top priority.”
These layoffs come just shortly after Activision-Blizzard announced that they were laying off around 800 staff.
According to Kotaku, Andrew Wilson emailed employees about how the layoffs were part of changes to streamline development and improve Electronic Arts as a company. “We have a vision to be the World’s Greatest Games Company,” he wrote. “If we’re honest with ourselves, we’re not there right now. We have work to do with our games, our player relationships, and our business.”
Kotaku was also told that EA was attempting to find new roles in other divisions for those who had been laid off. If new roles cannot be found, employees will receive severance benefits.
When EA shared their financial results for the fiscal third quarter of 2018, they mentioned that results were lower than expected, primarily due to Battlefield 5 under-performing. Despite the impressive success of Apex Legends since its launch, these layoffs appear to have been coming for some time.
Our thoughts are with all of those affected by these layoffs.
