Online game firm Digital Arts will lay off 5 precent of its workforce based on a report it filed with the Securities and Change Fee on Wednesday. Greater than 650 EA workers will lose their jobs because of the transfer, a part of a broader limiting that may see the corporate slicing again on workplace house and ending work on some video video games.
EA’s cuts are the most recent in a protracted line of layoffs which have rocked the online game business since final yr. In 2023, greater than 10,500 online game employees misplaced their jobs, and greater than 6,000 folks within the business had been lower in January 2024 alone. The online game firms which have laid off employees to this point embody Microsoft, Riot Video games, and Unity amongst many others. On Tuesday, Sony introduced that it was shedding 900 folks from its PlayStation division, roughly 8 p.c of its headcount.
In a memo despatched to EA workers, CEO Andrew Wilson wrote that the corporate is “streamlining our firm operations to ship deeper, extra related experiences for followers in every single place.” EA expects to complete making the cuts by early subsequent quarter, the memo says. The cuts, Wilson provides, will let EA focus extra on its “largest alternatives — together with our owned IP, sports activities, and big on-line communities.”
One of many video games that the transfer will instantly influence is a Star Wars first-person shooter being labored upon by Respawn, a sport growth studio that EA acquired in 2017, according to IGN. “It is at all times onerous to stroll away from a challenge, and this choice just isn’t a mirrored image of the group’s expertise, tenacity, or ardour they’ve for the sport,” EA Leisure president Laura Miele reportedly informed workers in a notice. “Giving followers the following installments of the long-lasting franchises they need is the definition of blockbuster storytelling and the suitable place to focus.”
Replace, February 28 2024, 5:45 PM ET: This story has been up to date with extra particulars of the canceled Star Wars sport.