EA has quashed fears that the SAG-AFTRA strike will hurt them or affect their games, at least for now.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, EA CEO Andrew Wilson gave a detailed, and of course, very carefully worded statement on the matter. This was in the context of the Q&A in the company’s latest quarterly earnings call.
He said:
“Let me first say we deeply value our talent and actors who are an important part of the work we do to deliver the incredible entertainment experiences that our players enjoy around the world.
This is not an EA-specific situation, this is an industry-specific situation, and we’re working diligently to negotiate at the table. The way it works now, in terms of our products specifically, is that the strike is limited to games commencing production after September 2023, including live service games.
So we don’t expect any near-term disruption to any of the games we have in development, or any of the live services we’re currently running.
That being said, we’re committed to continuing to bargain in good faith, and are hopeful that the parties can expediently resolve our issues at the bargaining table. But we’re not anticipating any significant short-term impact at EA.”
We had previously reported that Take-Two Interactive flatly denied that the SAG-AFTRA strike would delay or affect Grand Theft Auto 6. While the company and its developers were all struck, because the game was in production before September 2023, it was exempted from the strike.
We also pointed out that the annualized games made by the companies who are under the strike could be affected. EA’s annualized games are mainly their sports game, and they include EA College Football, EA Sports FC, EA Madden NFL, EA Sports UFC, EA Sports PGA Tour, WRC and F1.
Maybe EA’s process for making these sports games isn’t actually that much different than how Activision plans out their Call of Duty games. So these games may come out year after year, but they actually start development three or more years in advance. It certainly doesn’t seem likely, when EA Sports does update their games year after year as well, but of course, we don’t really know how EA’s game development goes on behind the scenes.
It’s of course, clear that companies like Take-Two and EA would want to stem any FUD about the strike affecting their games. For now, we have yet to learn if any announced games have been affected by it, and perhaps, if the strikers themselves will let word out about unannounced games in development.
