EA sacks 1,500, cans 12 unannounced projects |
Ó
Shortly after their acquisition of Playfish, Electronic Arts is set to streamline operations, sacking 1,500 employees from different levels, and canning 12 unannounced projects. Speaking in an investor conference call, chief financial officer John Brown gave out the details.
Out of the 1,500 employees to get the axe, 900 are positions in game development, 500 in publishing, and 100 for corporate level. Letting them go will save the company US$ 100 million annually. Laying off employees and closing facilities is never pleasant," said EA CEO John Riccitiello. "We have a lot of compassion for those impacted but these cuts are essential for transforming our company."
It was not clear if teams will remain intact, but Black Box, Redwood Shores, Tiburon and Mythic are all believed to be affected by the layoffs. "We think the cuts we have made are very, very aggressive. "We've cut teams, we've cut corporate, we've cut overhead, we've cut publishing but not to the point of hampering ourselves," Riccitiello said.
Apart from letting a lot of people go, EA was also forced to cancel 12 of its unannounced projects. These projects are the smaller, less profitable games. "So it is really, in a way, if you could array our title slate up knowing what we did about what we would have otherwise brought to market, we cut the bottom third of it."
More on EA and its games:
- Dead Space: Extraction underwhelms in sales, EA not disappointed?
- Downloadable 5-on-5 Madden game coming this December
49 Jumps PlayStation celebrates 15th birthday
36 Jumps PSP homebrew - MHUSPEED v3
22 Jumps PSP homebrew - MacroFire v3.0.12
Contact Us:
The QJ.net Network |
 |
| Site | Feed |
| QJ.NET | RSS |
| Nintendo DS | RSS |
| PlayStation 3 | RSS |
| PSP Updates | RSS |
| Wii | RSS |
| Xbox 360 | RSS |
| MMORPG | RSS |
| Personal Computer Games | RSS |
| iPhone - iPod Touch | RSS |
| QJ.NET Forums | RSS |
Add QJ.NET
User Favorites - December
User Favorites - December
Categories
Archives
Accessories
Add-ons
Applications
Artwork
Batteries
Cheats
Deals
Emulators
Events
Featured Articles
Firmware
Flash Applications
Flash games
Game Demos
Games
Hacks & Exploits
Homebrew Applications
Homebrew Demos
Homebrew Development
Homebrew Emulators
Homebrew Games
Homebrew Themes
How-To
Humor
Imports
Interviews
Magazines
Mods
MY QJ
News
Off Topic
On Shelves This Week
Opinions & Analysis
Podcasts
Previews
PSP Go
PSP Minis
PSP Slim & Lite
QJ How-To Series
QuickJump QuickGuide
QuickJump QuickPeek
Reviews
Rumors
Scans
Screenshots
Site News
Titles
UMD Movies
Videos
Weekend Warrior
Wi-Fi
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
Comments [refresh]
a partridge in a pear tree?
Serves you right for buying off nearly every big name small time dev out there and then not affording to keep them.
Kind of logical to think after we bought there people can we afford them.... In the time I have lived and played EA Games (EA games, challenge everything? :D) I have never understood EA.
There's 3 things to understand about EA.. Money, Money and Err Money.
I bet some of those people will go to competitors and maybe some of these people will start their own companies and in the future compete with EA.
They just trimming the fat to cut some costs, they probably keeping the most important talent and most of these 1500 are probably just work-a-day programmers who can be easily replaced if they decide to upsize again.
@symbal
Yeah or maybe they just worship that almighty dollar. "Keeping the most important talent"... ah man, I wish I had something that would give me a good enough buzz so I could actually come close to remotely believeing something like that. Its hard to look back at EAs past games and think "wow, they really have some talented people! EA 4 LiFe!!"
Then again, im sure EA is really feeling the "compassion". Probably cant even mention one persons name alone that they screwed over... but they can tell you how fat there wallet is im sure. But yeah, they should show some compassion. People cant develop good games if they are worried about getting $hit canned every month. Then they loose both the job and the wife. That sucks
I consider it a good thing because then all this shovelware they plan to release isn't going to sell well anyways so its better that they move the bad games out and put the real attention to the good games
Hopefully these were multiple projects for a hand full of IP's and not 12 individual IP's.
How can EA talk about compassion for turning people into homeless bums after they obviously have enough money to buy up other companies... "Yeah, we really need to expand our operation... and then immediately cut back."