EA announces further lay offs, this time affecting around 670 employees

Following its decision to cut six percent of its workforce last March, EA has announced another round of layoffs - this time affecting five percent of staff (around 670 employees) - as it moves away from "future licensed IP" toward its "owned IP, sports, and massive online communities".

In an email to staff announcing today's layoffs, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the cuts were part of a continuing effort to "optimise our global real estate footprint to best support our business".

In order to achieve its goals, Wilson said EA will be "streamlining [its] company operations", "sunsetting games and moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry". Additionally, it'll "double down on our biggest opportunities — including our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities".

As a result, approximately five percent of EA's workforce will lose their jobs, a move Wilson admitted would "create uncertainty and be challenging for many who have worked with such dedication and passion and have made important contributions to our company."

"While not every team will be impacted," Wilson continued, "this is the hardest part of these changes, and we have deeply considered every option to try and limit impacts to our teams. Our primary goal is to provide team members with opportunities to find new roles and paths to transition onto other projects. Where that's not possible, we will support and work with each colleague with the utmost attention, care, and respect."

According to Wilson, EA has already begun "communicating these impacts" to staff, and the process will be "largely completed by early next quarter." Today's layoffs follow an initial round of job cuts at the publisher last March, believed to have impacted around 775 people, and further layoffs at the EA-owned F1 developer Codemasters in December.

Notably, while Wilson and EA may be looking to move away from licensed IP in the future, the publisher has previously confirmed it has five high-profile licensed games in the works: two based on Marvel properties - Black Panther and Iron Man - and three Star Wars titles. An EA representative has told GamesIndustry.biz the two Marvel projects remain in development; however, in a seperate note to EA employees, Laura Miele, president of EA Entertainment and Technology, revealed the company's strategic shift has resulted in the cancellation of Respawn Entertainment's Star Wars FPS (reportedly a Mandalorian title). Additionally, Miele announced EA will be "winding down" Ridgeline Games, whose single-player Battlefield game will now be handled by Criterion. Ridgeline's founder, Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto, recently confirmed his departure from the Seattle-based developer.

Today's layoffs are only the latest in what's proving to be a devastating 2024 for games industry employees. In a little under two months, over 7,500 workers have lost their jobs, compared to the already substantial 9,000 layoffs seen across the entirety of 2023. This week alone, Sony announced it's laying off 900 employees globally, while Until Dawn developer Supermassive cut 90 jobs, Life is Strange: True Colors studio Deck Nine confirmed it will be laying off approximately 20 percent of its total workforce, job cuts have been reported at Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games, and Saltsea Chronicles studio Die Gute Fabrik revealed it had been forced to halt production, with all team members now looking for new work.