Since the start of 2024, the news concerning the video game industry has been quite depressing from a salary point of view, with too many layoffs one after another, to believe that the end of the year is approaching tax which accelerates this process which has already caused so much talk last year. What do you want, these poor little shareholders are holding on to their margins… Just this week, we had already learned that Supermassive Games plans to let go of 90 employees and that there are nearly 900 people from the different studios of Sony Interactive Entertainment across the world will also lose their jobs, with the closure of London Studio. Well, it continues, this time on the side ofElectronic Arts. As reported GamesIndustry.biz, the publisher will transfer around 5% of its payroll to focus on the sectors of its activity that it thinks are most likely to be a success for the years to come. At the end of March 2023, the employee count stood at 13,400 and while that hasn’t changed too much, this would therefore be equivalent to 670 job cuts…
According to Kotakuthe total number of layoffs in the industry now stands at 8,100 since the start of the year… The CEO Andrew Wilson also said he wanted to “move away from developing future licensed intellectual properties that we do not believe will be successful in our evolving industry.” In place, EA will therefore focus on its licenses, including sports games, and its online community. You will find below a copy of the email he sent internally, made available on the official website :
Team,
We entertain, inspire and connect more people with more content and deeper experiences than ever before. Over the past year, we’ve organized our company to more empower our creative leaders to deliver on our strategic priorities of entertaining massive online communities, telling success stories, and harnessing the power of community in and around our games. These actions have allowed us to create bigger, bolder experiences for hundreds of millions of players and fans around the world.
We are also at the forefront of an accelerated industry transformation where gamer needs and motivations have changed significantly. Fans are becoming more and more interested in the biggest [propriété intellectuelle] and look to us for broader experiences where they can play, watch, create content and forge deeper connections. Our industry is at the forefront of entertainment, and in today’s dynamic environment, we are advancing the way we work and continuing to evolve our business.
As a company full of creators and storytellers, we believe in the value of teams innovating together and continue to learn and adopt new ways of collaborating to grow and serve our global communities. Given how and where we work, We continue to optimize our global real estate footprint to best support our business. We are also abandoning certain games and stepping away from the development of future licenses that we do not believe will be successful in our evolving industry. This greater focus allows us to spark creativity, accelerate innovation and double down on our biggest opportunities, including our intellectual property, our sports and our massive online communities, to deliver gamers the entertainment they want today and tomorrow. Finally, We’re streamlining our business operations to deliver deeper, more connected experiences to fans around the worldwhich creates community, shapes culture and grows fandom.
In this time of change, we anticipate these decisions will impact approximately five percent of our workforce. I understand that this will create uncertainty and be a challenge for many of those who have worked with such dedication and passion and made important contributions to our business. While not every team will be impacted, this is the hardest part of these changes, and we have carefully studied all options to try to limit the impact on our teams. Our main goal is to provide team members with opportunities to find new roles and transition paths to other projects. Where this is not possible, we will support and work with each colleague with the utmost attention, care and respect. Communication of these impacts has already begun and will be largely completed by the start of the next quarter.
I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has contributed to EA’s continuing story. We are a team that leverages our values to lead the future of entertainment, and I look forward to what we create together. Thanks for all you’ve done.
Andrew
A licensed game has thus been canceled and this is neither the Iron Man of Motivation Studio nor the one on Black Panther of Cliffhanger Games. No, the unfortunate chosen one is one of the three projects Star Wars announced in 2022. You can breathe, the third Star Wars Jedi of Respawn Entertainment is doing well. On the other hand, it’s the FPS developed by the studio and which according to the latest news was a game The Mandalorian in the vein of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter which is going by the wayside…The fans would probably have preferred to do without a strategy game rather than this…
Moreover, according to IGN, the studio Ridgeline Games by Marcus Lehto will be closed, which probably explains why the latter recently jumped ship. Some of the developers will integrate Ripple Effectwhile Danny Isaac and Darren White of Criterion will now be in charge of single-player content for the license Battlefield.
The president ofEA Entertainment and TechnologyLaura Miele, also took stock by sharing the following text to employees. Spoilersthis is obviously about play live service aka GaaS…
Hello everyone,
Over the past six months, you’ve heard me talk about aligning our portfolio and organization to deliver on our ambitious growth strategy. One of the essential elements to carry out our projects is to ensure we listen to our players and invest in the games they want to play. As Andrew highlighted in his EA Action, the reality of a creative business is that market conditions and stakeholder needs are constantly changing. We are seeing a rapid evolution of players towards large open world games, massive communities and live services.
With this in mind, we have shared the following updates with our teams:
Respawn
Respawn’s unique ability to connect with players and create exceptional gaming experiences is second to none in entertainment. When we’ve looked at Respawn’s portfolio over the past few months, what’s clear is that The games our players are most excited about are Jedi and the rich library of brands owned by Respawn. Knowing this, we decided to move away from the initial development of a Star Wars FPS action game to focus our efforts on new projects based on our own brands while providing support for existing games. It’s always difficult to walk away from a project, and this decision doesn’t reflect the team’s talent, tenacity, or passion for the game. Giving fans the next installments of iconic franchises they want is the definition of blockbuster storytelling and the right place to focus on.
Battlefield Studios
Our vision for Battlefield is ambitious and exciting. The project is making significant progressthanks to the strong leadership of Vince Zampella and Byron Beede and the dedicated studios determined to building a Battlefield platform that our fans will love. Today, we have the largest Battlefield team in franchise history, with passionate people around the world, and our studios are organized to benefit from both franchise and local leadership.
Marcus Lehto recently made the personal decision to leave the project. To ensure the continuity of our work, we immediately appointed Criterion management to oversee our solo work. As part of this change, we will be closing Ridgeline as a standalone studio in Seattle, with some team members joining Ripple Effect. They will continue to work with teams from DICE, Ripple, and Criterion to create the next Battlefield experience.
Mobile
Mobile continues to be the largest gaming platform and we see strong growth opportunities for EA, and teams are more focused than ever with clearer strategy and priorities. Over the past six months, we have united the mobile and HD franchise teams under single leadership across EA SPORTS FC, Madden NFL and The Sims. The next step is to build our standalone mobile wallet for growth. Over the past few weeks we have announced the termination of Kim Kardashian Hollywood, Lord of the Rings, Tap Sports Baseball and F1 Mobile. These games have entertained many people over the years, and now is a good time to focus our time on the remaining games in our portfolio that we believe can grow. We have great titles and I am optimistic about the direction we can take our important intellectual property library.
It is not lost on me that these changes are more than words on a page; they directly impact the work you do every day and, in some cases, force us to cut positions and say goodbye to talented colleagues. I will never lose sight of the human impact of these decisions and know that change and disruption are not easy. In difficult times, we must remember how important it is to be there for our players and each other.
Laura
Once again, let us wish good luck to the people who will be impacted by these job cuts.
| Alexandre SAMSON (Omega Law) Responsible Proofreader – Editor | ||
| Addicted to Assassin’s Creed and Destiny, big fan of RPGs and passionate about video game experiences in general. Reader of comics (DC) and various mangas (One Piece!). Chemist by training and Whovian at heart. | ||
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