EA has announced that it will be laying off 350 employees as it makes changes to its marketing, publishing, and operations teams and prepares to ramp down its presence in Japan and Russia.
Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts (EA), released a public statement explaining these “important but very hard decisions,” and and that EA is “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.”
The full statement can be read below:
Today we took some important steps as a company to address our challenges and prepare for the opportunities ahead. As we look across a changing world around us, it’s clear that we must change with it. We’re making deliberate moves to better deliver on our commitments, refine our organization and meet the needs of our players. As part of this, we have made changes to our marketing and publishing organization, our operations teams, and we are ramping down our current presence in Japan and Russia as we focus on different ways to serve our players in those markets. In addition to organizational changes, we are deeply focused on increasing quality in our games and services. Great games will continue to be at the core of everything we do, and we are thinking differently about how to amaze and inspire our players.
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.
This day is another sad day in the games industry this year that has already seen around 800 employees being laid off from Activision Blizzard, which accounted for around 8% of its workforce, as well as layoffs impacting employees at the studio behind Guild Wars, ArenaNet.
As for EA, these 350 people made up almost 4% of the 9000 that are employed by the company responsible for such titles as Madden, FIFA, Apex Legends, Anthem, Battlefield V, Star Wars Battlefront and so many more.
Kotaku has reported that one person who works in the affected department has said that “these layoffs had been expected for a while now, and that EA had put hiring and travel freezes on marketing for several months. People within marketing and publishing had been expecting a reorganization since at least October, the person said. “I think some people will be relieved to not be in limbo anymore,” they said.”
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who wishes all those impacted by these layoffs the absolute best. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst.
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