Electronic Arts is the latest video game company to announce layoffs and video game cancellations.
In a letter shared with the public, EA CEO Andrew Wilson explains the decision, without directly stating that people would be fired:
“… we are streamlining our company operations to deliver deeper, more connected experiences for fans everywhere that build community, shape culture, and grow fandom.
In this time of change, we expect these decisions to impact approximately 5 percent of our workforce.”
This is how he revealed that they would be cancelling certain video game titles:
“Given how and where we are working, we are continuing to optimize our global real estate footprint to best support our business. We are also sunsetting games and moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry.”
EA made this announcement in a matter of days after Sony’s announcement. While we somewhat expected that more and more companies would be revealing layoffs, the proximity of the announcements is particularly harsh, as EA and Sony are among the biggest of these companies, in terms of revenue, market share, and the caliber of their video games and properties.
EA made this decision in particular after an extended period where the company has been coasting on their tentpole annualized sports franchises, and simultaneously taking some risks with new games outside of that window.
This has brought them some success with the Star Wars Jedi franchise by Respawn Entertainment. However, they have seen a more extended and longer string of failures in this department. Of course, we very well know EA’s fumbling of their Star Wars exclusivity license, failing to deliver on multiple projects.
They also more recently took risks on publishing titles that failed, from last year’s Wild Hearts to this year’s Immortals of Aveum. This does come with the territory of taking risks, but unlike in previous years, EA can’t afford to do this kind of risk taking.
EA has also been seeing major changes happening on those tentpole sports games themselves. They finally dropped the FIFA license after major disagreements, renaming the brand to EA Sports FC starting last year. Subsequently, EA is reviving their long dormant NCAA video game franchise, but no longer licensing with the NCAA. The title is being renamed to EA Sports College Football and is expected to launch this year.
We wish the exiting employees of Electronic Arts the best, and hope that they can find placement back in the video game industry.
