Electronic Arts have revealed the result of their restructuring efforts.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, EA revealed plans to restructure after it also revealed it would have to lay off 6 % of its workforce last March. These layoffs came after it shut down Apex Legends, and reportedly cancelled games like Battlefield Mobile and Titanfall 3.
The big change in the company is that EA Sports is spinning off into its own division, with all the other games now falling under the heading of EA Entertainment.
Cam Weber will be in charge of EA Sports, which will include racing games under its sports lineup. Most of EA’s sports games are their recurring lineup of franchise games, including Madden NFL, NHL, UFC, and F1.
Interestingly, EA Sports was forced to rebrand some of those games, with NCAA going forward as EA Sports College Football, and FIFA going forward as EA Sports FC. It also discontinued its NBA Live games as of 2018.
On the racing side, EA Sports has F1, Need For Speed and EA Sports Rally, which is the rebrand for the DiRT series. As the company that owns both Codemasters and Criterion Games, EA is surprisingly one of the dominant players in both arcade and sim racing.
EA Entertainment presumably takes charge of The Sims, Battlefield, Apex Legends, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Dead Space, and its contracted Star Wars games.
The notable shifts in leadership under EA Entertainment are as follows:
Laura Miele becomes EA Entertainment’s president.
Vince Zampella, co-founder of Respawn Entertainment, is now in charge of Apex Legends, Battlefield, and Star Wars.
Finally, Samantha Ryan will be in charge of The Sims and EA’s big single player PC and console games. Jeff Karp remains head of the mobile games division.
Presumably, EA Entertainment is also in charge of the management of their classic games library, which does fold in several generations of key PC and console games. Many of those games have seen rerelease in GOG, and also as part of the EA Play library, but EA has even yet to plumb its depths.
For the most part, EA has slightly trimmed the number of active franchises and games they are working on. EA Originals seems to still be a point of interest, and EA has also stretched its wings publishing Team Ninja’s Wild Hearts. But overall, EA may not be looking at making anything too ambitious or expensive in the near future.
