Electronic Arts Announces Employee Layoffs and Cancellation of Star Wars Game

It’s EA’s second round of mass layoffs in less than a year.

Another day, another round of layoffs in the gaming industry. Electronic Arts (EA) has announced that it will be reducing about five percent of its workforce, resulting in the layoff of nearly 700 people from their jobs. Additionally, games are being canceled, and at least one development studio is being shut down.

EA’s CEO, Andrew Wilson, announced the employee layoffs in an email to the staff, which was later published on the company’s blog on Wednesday.

Wilson said, “We’re working on making our company’s operations simpler to offer better and more connected experiences for people all around the world.” These efforts aim to foster community, influence culture, and expand our audience reach.” In this time of change, we anticipate these decisions will affect approximately five percent of our workforce.’

According to EA’s 2023 annual report, the company employed nearly 13,400 people as of the end of March last year. Just to give you an idea, 670 people make up five percent of that.

Wilson wrote, ‘We will support and work with every colleague with the utmost care, consideration, and respect,’ using gentle language to refer to their layoffs.

Avoiding explicit phrases like ’employee layoffs’ or ‘cuts’ or ‘reductions in workforce,’ Wilson mentioned that EA will try to transition employees to new projects or roles before letting them go. We’ve already started talking with the impacted employees, and we anticipate wrapping up these conversations by around April. However, many people are likely to find themselves without a job.

This is EA’s second mass layoff announcement in less than a year. In a similar blog post in March last year, Wilson revealed that the company would be reducing six percent of its workforce at that time, which amounted to nearly 800 people.

Mashable reached out to EA for comment.

EA Shifts Away from Licensed IP Titles
Employee layoffs aren’t the only cuts at EA. In addition to ‘continuing to optimize our global real estate footprint’ aka downsizing its office space, the company is canceling or pausing some of its in-house development studio titles. Notably, this includes a shift away from licensed intellectual property (IP) games, as EA sees limited future in them.

Wilson said, ‘We are also in the process of winding down games and stepping away from licensed IP development in the future that we don’t believe will be successful in our evolving industry.’

According to the CEO, this change will allow EA to focus on ‘its biggest opportunities – including our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities.’

However, this doesn’t mean that EA is canceling all of its EA Studios titles that rely on external licensed IP. It’s said that titles like Black Panther from Cliffhanger Games and the Iron Man game from Motive Studio are still in development currently, although developers may not feel entirely reassured by Wilson’s statements.

However, EA did cancel the first-person shooter Star Wars game that Respawn Entertainment was working on. Respawn, known for developing the Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi series, is now being directed back towards their owned franchises.

Laura Miele, EA’s Head of Entertainment and Technology, said, ‘As we look across the Respawn portfolio over the past few months, it’s clear that the games that excite our players most are the Jedi library and Respawn’s rich, owned IP.’ ‘With that in mind, we have decided to move away from early development on the Star Wars FPS Action game to focus our efforts on new, owned IP projects while providing support for current games.’

EA’s decision to avoid licensed IP also extends to mobile games, where the company previously announced it would be discontinuing Kim Kardashian Hollywood, Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth, MLB Tap Sports Baseball, and F1 Mobile.

Miele mentioned, “These games have brought joy to many over the years, and it’s time for us to direct our attention to the rest of the games in our collection “We think there’s a lot of potential for growth in this area. We’ve got some fantastic titles, and I’m feeling really positive about the direction we can go with our extensive collection of owned intellectual property.”

Unfortunately, even working on owned IP doesn’t guarantee safety from employee layoffs, as not all of EA’s studios have escaped the chopping block. American developer Ridgeline Studio is being entirely shut down, with studio head and co-creator of Halo Marcus Lehto already making the personal decision to depart. Ridgeline was first revealed in September 2022, focusing on creating a new story set in the Battlefield world. Now, Criterion Games is taking over this responsibility, but unfortunately, Ridgeline won’t get the chance to release a game as it’s being shut down.

EA’s employee layoff news comes just one day after PlayStation announced it would be laying off around 900 of its employees, including staff from well-known development studios like Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, and Guerrilla Games. Kotaku’s statistics indicate that over 8,000 people have been laid off in the gaming industry in just the past two months. That’s only 1,000 fewer than estimates of the total number of gaming industry workers who were laid off throughout the entire year of 2023 – a year that’s already been marked by extensive rounds of employee layoffs in gaming.”