In a major move today, Electronic Arts has laid off 350 workers, the most ever laid off under the leadership of CEO Andrew Wilson since he took over in 2013. This move is the second recent mass layoff in the video game industry, as it was reported last month by Kotaku that Activision was laying off about 8% of its staff.
Electronic Arts Layoffs
In a statement released on EA’s website today, CEO Andrew Wilson announced that 350 of the company’s 9,000 staff members would be laid off, which equates to about 4% of the company’s workforce. These layoffs will affect the company’s marketing, publishing and operations departments, and EA will also wind down business in Russia and Japan. In the same statement, Wilson wrote that the company made some important steps today in order to prepare for the future, and that the company is making moves to “better deliver on our commitments, refine our organization and meet the needs of our players.”
Wilson also emphasized that despite these moves, EA is committed to increasing the game and service quality for their players. “Great games will continue to be at the core of everything we do, and we are thinking differently about how to amaze and inspire our players.”
It’s been an interesting past couple of months for EA, as their business has been hurt by low sales figures on Battlefield V as well as issues regarding microtransactions. However, Apex Legends has been a huge hit for the company, and has attracted more than 50 million players so far.
The move did seem to help EA in the stock market, as EA’s stock did close up 0.58% at $102.32, but that number is still down from August, when their stock was sitting at about $130 per share.
Also of significance is that, according to a report from Venture Beat, NBA Live community manager, THAHOOPGAWD, was a part of the layoffs. He had been with EA since 2015.
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