EA Cuts Roughly 700 Jobs in Another Round of Industry Layoffs

Just a day after Sony confirmed it's laying off 900 PlayStation employees across its first-party studios, publisher EA has announced it's doing the same. In the region of 670 workers — or around five per cent of the company's workforce — will lose their jobs as the EA Sports FC, Battlefield distributor moves "away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry".

Instead, the firm is going to double down on "our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities", which means it is bringing post-launch development on current titles that don't fit that bill to an end. According to GamesIndustry.biz, one unannounced game has been cancelled and the team distributed to other projects within EA, with other games media journalists claiming it's the Star Wars FPS from Respawn Entertainment based on The Mandalorian.

In a statement, CEO Andrew Wilson said the company had "deeply considered every option to try and limit impacts to our teams", with those affected by the layoffs having either already learned or will be told by the beginning of the next quarter. Wilson claims: "This greater focus allows us to drive creativity, accelerate innovation, and double down on our biggest opportunities — including our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities — to deliver the entertainment players want today and tomorrow."

It's now estimated that roughly 7,800 video game developers have lost their jobs since the start of this year. Across the entirety of 2023, estimates suggest 10,500 industry workers were made redundant.

[source ea.com, via gamesindustry.biz, videogameschronicle.com]