Digital Arts CEO Andrew Wilson introduced at the moment that the corporate is “advancing the best way we work and persevering with to evolve our enterprise,” and by that he means it will likely be shedding roughly 5% of its workforce.
Wilson’s message begins with a triumphant observe about how EA is “entertaining, inspiring, and connecting extra individuals with extra content material and deeper experiences than ever earlier than.” He goes on to say that earlier restructuring efforts at EA, particularly management modifications introduced in 2023, “have positioned us to construct larger, bolder experiences for a whole lot of thousands and thousands of gamers and followers world wide.”
Then he actually kicks it into gear: “As an organization filled with creators and storytellers, we imagine within the worth of groups innovating collectively, and proceed to study and undertake new methods of collaborating to develop and serve our world communities.” That sounds good, proper? Nicely, it is not.
After noting that EA is “persevering with to optimize our world actual property footprint to finest assist our enterprise,” and can sundown unspecified video games and “transfer away from growth of future licensed IP that we don’t imagine can be profitable in our altering business,” he lastly will get to the center of the matter.
“We’re streamlining our firm operations to ship deeper, extra related experiences for followers all over the place that construct neighborhood, form tradition, and develop fandom,” Wilson stated. “On this time of change, we anticipate these selections to impression roughly 5 p.c of our workforce.”
The variety of workers being let go was not specified, however a March 2023 SEC submitting put EA’s world headcount at roughly 13,400, that means roughly 670 individuals may very well be impacted. That quantity is not ultimate: Wilson stated EA will attempt to discover “new roles” for workers the place potential, and “speaking these impacts,” which I assume is C-suite-speak for telling individuals they do not have a job anymore, will not be full till someday within the firm’s subsequent fiscal quarter.
Digital Arts has leaned closely into licensed video games lately, significantly with Disney-owned properties together with Star Wars and Marvel. It is unclear whether or not Wilson’s reference to shifting away from licensed video games consists of tasks which are presently within the works, however a rep confirmed with GamesIndustry that the previously-announced Iron Man and Black Panther video games are nonetheless within the works.
The announcement of layoffs at Digital Arts comes simply hours after Deck 9 Video games stated it will likely be chopping 20% of its workers, and continues a 12 months that has been nothing in need of catastrophic for workers within the business. 2023 was a horrible 12 months and 2024 is already on observe to beat it: Sony introduced plans to put off 900 workers yesterday whereas esports firm ESL Faceit Group stated it is going to reduce 15% of its workforce, and the day earlier than that Supermassive laid out performs to put off roughly 90 of its workers. Blackbird Interactive, Twitch, Riot, Behaviour Interactive, and Microsoft have additionally made important staffing cuts this 12 months.