• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

News EA laying off 670 people, or 5% of its workforce

In a note to staff, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the company is also "moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry."

GamesIndustry.biz understands that one such title was cancelled as part of this plan, with the teams working on it redeployed to other projects.
Click to expand...
Outside of sports or racing, EA's major external licenses in recent years have included Disney properties like Star Wars and Marvel, which the company has tapped for upcoming games based on Black Panther and Iron Man. (An EA representative confirmed both Black Panther and Iron Man remain in development.)

Wilson explained the rationale for the shift away from licensed IP in his note, saying, "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."

On the job cuts, Wilson said the publisher "deeply considered every option to try and limit impacts to our teams."

He added that informing people of those impacts is a process that should be "largely completed by early next quarter."
Click to expand...

I guess this means less Star Wars games in the future from EA.
 
This is the second time in as many years EA has undergone a restructuring plan with hundreds of layoffs. Last March, the publisher announced a plan to cut approximately 6% of staff, or about 775 people going by the previous year's global employee headcount.
Click to expand...
oh for fucks sake

(also not the most important bit at all, but the part about them wanting to move away from licensed games is disappointing since their recent Star Wars games seemed like the one actually kinda interesting thing they had going for them)
 
I hope everyone impacted lands on their feet.

Also I feel like they're buying the lede here a little:

"moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry."
Click to expand...
The article asserts that the EA-Disney relationship is still good (or at least good enough to not cancel the IM and BP games). Are they going to drop Madden after losing FIFA next?
 
I wonder how many more stories like this have to happen before companies realize the way things are going isn’t sustainable?
 
I just don't know what dev EA has available to work on their own IPs if Iron Man and Black Panther are still on.

There's devs for Battlefield and Skate and the Sims and Apex Legends and Bioware still... technically might exist (for now...). Every other studio they own was announcing work on a licensed game.
 
shoptroll said:
I hope everyone impacted lands on their feet.

Also I feel like they're buying the lede here a little:


The article asserts that the EA-Disney relationship is still good (or at least good enough to not cancel the IM and BP games). Are they going to drop Madden after losing FIFA next?
Click to expand...

There is no way that EA is dropping Madden. A US football game is worth nothing without the NFL license with all of the teams. As long as Madden remains successful for EA, they are going to keep making the games. The NFL is greedy, but they know not to kill a good thing.

FIFA was a unique situation where the FIFA license didn't matter beyond the name of the game and the World Cup mode/license. Even though EA FC isn't called FIFA anymore, you still have all of the countries, leagues, clubs, and players in the game that all past EA soccer games had. FIFA really overplayed their hand, EA called their bluff, and now FIFA is left out in the cold and no longer makes a dime off of the game.
 
Yeah, so after all these layoffs from different companies I suspect most people aren't being rehired any time soon. Best case scenario some new studios are created I guess. But probably a lot of these people will leave the industry.

I know its cyclical and eventually there will be another economic growth period and a push for HDer graphics and more people will be hired later (maybe not as many though). But there's always more meat for the grinder.

Passion is not a substitute for fair gainful employment. I wish the best for these poor workers. They deserve better.
 
It's like a game of musical chairs. "Shit, if we don't lay off 5-10% of our workforce right fucking now we'll be the last ones left!"

Everyone I knew was quite sure in March-April 2020 that Covid would inevitably end and the world would return to normal as if it were a fever dream. Yet all of these CEOs were blinded by the growth they saw on charts and acted so ridiculously irresponsibly.
 
honestly we do need Japan's laws on layoffs. Their strategy of putting people in menial tasks wouldn't work here unless they want hundreds of janitors walking around
 
The house of cards are slowly coming down with most companies downsizing. I sympathize with everyone impacted because it might be very tough to land on their feet as all the companies follow suit. Greed is a horrible thing.

I better as HELL not see EA with a "record profit" story.

Paxie said:
Starting to feel like the AAA part of the industry is in the beginning stages of a crash at this point, this keeps getting more ridiculous...
Click to expand...

I'd argue this will become far more widespread in tech. I'd like to say I am optimistic that it will be just "tech" but....

Im not.
 
Paxie said:
Starting to feel like the AAA part of the industry is in the beginning stages of a crash at this point, this keeps getting more ridiculous...
Click to expand...
Who's to say we haven't already crashed? AAA games have slowed to a crawl, mass layoffs, studio closures. It's not like gaming is gonna just stop happening like in 83. But when +3000 people are just left on the street how else can we view this?
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I just don't know what dev EA has available to work on their own IPs if Iron Man and Black Panther are still on.

There's devs for Battlefield and Skate and the Sims and Apex Legends and Bioware still... technically might exist (for now...). Every other studio they own was announcing work on a licensed game.
Click to expand...
www.ea.com

EA Studio – Discover the creators behind EA Games – EA Official

EA Studios is made up of over 20 studios and 6000 creators committed to building exceptional games.
www.ea.com www.ea.com

I think you nailed most of them. They probably want to get Respawn, Motive and Cliffhanger off Disney IPs at some point.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
Who's to say we haven't already crashed? AAA games have slowed to a crawl, mass layoffs, studio closures. It's not like gaming is gonna just stop happening like in 83. But when +3000 people are just left on the street how else can we view this?
Click to expand...

It's a lot more than 3,000


Screen_Shot_2024-02-28_at_1.11.08_PM.png
 
grobla123 said:
Yeah, so after all these layoffs from different companies I suspect most people aren't being rehired any time soon. Best case scenario some new studios are created I guess. But probably a lot of these people will leave the industry
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, I think there's gonna be a lot of institutional knowledge that just disappears as a result of this. And people thinking of trying to break into video games are gonna see this mess and go anywhere else too. Brain drain on an industrial scale

It's not gonna be obvious immediately, but I think 5 or 10 years down the road, it's gonna become real apparent that a lot of the people who actually knew how to make a good game got fired, and most of ones who weren't got scared off anyway

incredibly short-sighted the way all these companies are gutting themselves for short-term gain at the cost of their future prospects
 
Josh5890 said:
www.ea.com

EA Studio – Discover the creators behind EA Games – EA Official

EA Studios is made up of over 20 studios and 6000 creators committed to building exceptional games.
www.ea.com www.ea.com

I think you nailed most of them. They probably want to get Respawn, Motive and Cliffhanger off Disney IPs at some point.
Click to expand...

Cliffhanger and Motive just started working on Black Panter and Iron Man like 12 months ago is the issue. Those games probably won't be done for like four more years... IDK.
 
reading about layoffs like this while sitting in my game dev class just has me kinda :/

like i know it's across all of tech but still
 
I'm really curious to see which parts of EA was impacted by this cause a lot of parts of EA weren't doing well to begin with.

It's just pure shit.
 
0
Lugia667 said:
those Disney liscesning fees must be pretty brutal if the Insomniac leak was true as well
Click to expand...
I wouldn't be surprised if Disney ends up overplaying their hand here. I get that they are trying to scoop up as much cash as they can to offset their other problems, but if the big publishers start to push back on those licensing fees, then Disney won't get that revenue. They closed all of their internal game studios a long time ago.
 
I was always curious if the financials of their licensing deals for Disney properties work out of them. Guess not.
 
0
Josh5890 said:
I wouldn't be surprised if Disney ends up overplaying their hand here. I get that they are trying to scoop up as much cash as they can to offset their other problems, but if the big publishers start to push back on those licensing fees, then Disney won't get that revenue. They closed all of their internal game studios a long time ago.
Click to expand...

EA already committed to these games and probably has a no cancellation clause in their contract that is going to fuck them so Disney probably has at least four years of games coming from EA while they build or buy their own studios for their stuff.
 
I know there has been some criticism of Sushin koyo but I can't help feeling that practice is at least better than this. If you are gonna work very hard, at least guarantee you are gonna stay
 
shoptroll said:
I hope everyone impacted lands on their feet.
Click to expand...
With their level of experience, probably. However, I imagine many of them are seriously considering simply leaving the video game industry, assuming they haven’t decided already. Constantly worrying when the next round of layoffs will hit and knowing it’s a matter of when, not if has to be exhausting. They’re not being paid enough to make that worthwhile. Some of them relocate for work, and who wants to do that to their family?
 
0
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
EA already committed to these games and probably has a no cancellation clause in their contract that is going to fuck them so Disney probably has at least four years of games coming from EA while they build or buy their own studios for their stuff.
Click to expand...

Right, there is already a bunch of stuff in the pipeline from EA, Insomniac, and others. That said, if we see less new deals signed, Disney will probably take note at some point.

And they will probably just take their ball and go home.
 
0


GHdLzVfWAAA-YEn.jpg%3Alarge
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I guess this would have to be Jedi 3?

I can't think of anything else.
Click to expand...
Respawn reportedly has (or possibly had) multiple Star Wars projects in the works. There's Jedi 3, I think a strategy game led by former Firaxis devs, and most recently they were rumored to have an FPS mandalorian game that sounded like it could have been a spiritual successor to Titanfall 2
 
BlackthornOrion said:
Respawn reportedly has (or possibly had) multiple Star Wars projects in the works. There's Jedi 3, I think a strategy game led by former Firaxis devs, and most recently they were rumored to have an FPS mandalorian game that sounded like it could have been a spiritual successor to Titanfall 2
Click to expand...

Yeah, but the strategy game is pretty limited budget (the developer doesn't seem large at all) and the FPS game was just reported on like... a week ago?
 
0
Dardan Sandiego said:
Deleted?

edit: "unannounced star wars FPS" is weird. They announced one to be made at Respawn, was there a second one?
Click to expand...
I just updated my post. Supposedly a Respawn project was canceled, but IGN took the story down.

Dardan Sandiego said:
The Respawn Star Wars FPS was originally announced in 2022

www.ea.com

Electronic Arts & Lucasfilm Games announce new Star Wars titles from Respawn Entertainment

Upcoming Titles Include the Next Game in the Star Wars Jedi Franchise, a new Star Wars FPS from Peter Hirschmann and a Strategy Game via a Publishing Collaboration Between Respawn and Bit Reactor
www.ea.com www.ea.com

Either someone got their wired crossed or this was Battlefront 3?
Click to expand...

I thought DICE did the Battlefront games? Either way, the news seems up in the air.
 
Josh5890 said:
I just updated my post. Supposedly a Respawn project was canceled, but IGN took the story down.



I thought DICE did the Battlefront games? Either way, the news seems up in the air.
Click to expand...
Ah, didn't see that it was a Respawn project.
 
0
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Cliffhanger and Motive just started working on Black Panter and Iron Man like 12 months ago is the issue. Those games probably won't be done for like four more years... IDK.
Click to expand...
I'm glad I'm not in a position of trying to constantly correct course of major resources when the big products take 5+ years to get from start to finish.
 
0
They should return to how Lucasarts used to do things and license out the Star Wars license to anybody and everybody. Yeah, there was some shitty games in that pile but a lot of gems too.
 
HockeyBird said:
They should return to how Lucasarts used to do things and license out the Star Wars license to anybody and everybody. Yeah, there was some shitty games in that pile but a lot of gems too.
Click to expand...
tbf, they kinda are doing that. Ubisoft has Star Wars Outlaws coming supposedly this year, Traveler's Tales made Lego Skywalker Saga, Aspyr wa doing a KOTOR remake before that seemingly all fell apart, Quantic Dream is working on Star Wars Eclipse

Since the EA deal ended, it doesn't seem like they're being that stingy with letting other developers get a bite at the apple
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom