There’s some more bad news for the gaming industry — a series of EA layoffs have been announced. 350 people in three divisions at the company have lost their jobs in what has been an undeniably challenging year for the gaming industry as a whole, adding to concerns that there may be long-term trouble with some of the bigger companies in the business.
Primarily, the EA layoffs will impact 350 people in the marketing, publishing, and analytics departments. Electronic Arts has 9,000 employees in total, meaning that they’ve let go a little under 4 percent of its total workforce. The locations of the employees were not specified, but EA has locations around the world and many people in the company are likely to be affected in some fashion as a result of these layoffs.
The layoffs were commented on in a statement by the company to Kotaku, a portion of which we’ve reproduced here:
“Today we took some important steps as a company to address our challenges and prepare for the opportunities ahead. 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.” – Electronic Arts statement
In addition to the 350 EA layoffs, the company has decided to scale down its operations in Japan and Russia as part of an effort to restructure the way they handle those regions.
Electronic Arts continues on to state that they will be working with these laid-off employees to help them find a career at another studio. Throughout its statement, EA reaffirmed their commitment to delivering great games to players and added that they are redoubling its efforts to increase the quality of its products.
Layoffs are rough at any company, especially in an industry as volatile as the gaming world. Hopefully, the unfortunate folks who lost their jobs will land on their feet somewhere else in the industry.
