Today, EA has announced that they will be laying off 350 roles within the 9,000 person company. In a public statement by Andrew Wilson, the CEO, he said that “As we look across a changing world around us, it’s clear that we must change with it. We’re making deliberate moves to better deliver on our commitments, refine our organization and meet the needs of our players. As part of this, we have made changes to our marketing and publishing organization, our operations teams, and we are ramping down our current presence in Japan and Russia as we focus on different ways to serve our players in those markets.”
The changes in the marketing and publishing organization and operations teams stem from the company’s motives to “address our challenges and prepare for the opportunities ahead”. EA sees this as a way to better deliver on their commitments, refining the organization, and to meet the need of the players. Andrew Wilson went on to say that EA is focused on making quality games and services. “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.”
Andrew Wilson made sure to note that EA will do whatever they can to help those who were affected, saying “We are friends and colleagues at EA, we appreciate and value everyone’s contributions, and we are doing everything we can to ensure we are looking after our people to help them through this period to find their next opportunity. This is our top priority.”
Sadly, this is not the first layoff news we’ve heard this year. In February, Activision Blizzard made news that affected hundreds of staff. Earlier this month, fuller picture was painted as it was revealed how Blizzard was affected by the layoffs.