An Digital Arts online game brand is seen on the Digital Leisure Expo.
Lucy Nicholson | Reuters
Digital Arts introduced Wednesday that it’s going to minimize 5% of its workforce, a part of a plan that features lowering workplace area and ending work on some video video games.
EA employed 13,400 employees as of the top of March 2023, in response to its most up-to-date annual submitting with the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee in Could. Meaning the layoffs could have an effect on about 670 jobs.
The corporate’s announcement marks the newest headcount discount amongst online game builders in current months, persevering with a broader pattern of serious downsizing throughout the tech business.
On Tuesday, Sony stated it could lay off about 900 staff in its PlayStation division, or 8% of its workforce. Final month, Microsoft minimize 1,900 jobs throughout its gaming unit three months after it acquired Activision Blizzard, and Tencent’s Riot Video games slashed 11% of its workforce.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson wrote in a memo to staff on Wednesday that the online game firm is “streamlining our firm operations to ship deeper, extra linked experiences for followers in every single place.”
The cuts will help EA’s “strategic priorities and progress initiatives,” in response to a Wednesday submitting with the SEC. The corporate expects its restructuring plan can be “considerably full” by the top of December.
“We’re persevering with to optimize our international actual property footprint to finest help our enterprise,” Wilson wrote in his Wednesday notice. “We’re additionally sunsetting video games and shifting away from growth of future licensed IP that we don’t imagine can be profitable in our altering business.”
Wilson added that the cuts will allow EA to focus extra on its “greatest alternatives — together with our owned IP, sports activities, and large on-line communities.”
In the course of the firm’s third-quarter earnings name final month, Wilson stated the corporate would give attention to persevering with to put money into its present gaming franchises attracting giant on-line audiences, together with Apex Legends, Battlefield, EA Sports activities FC, Madden NFL and The Sims.
— CNBC’s Steve Kovach contributed to this report.
Do not miss these tales from CNBC PRO:
