EA Cuts 1500 Jobs
EA has revealed plans to cut 1500 staff by April 2010.
According to GamaSutra, the cuts were confirmed before an earnings call yesterday and will include staff from EA Redwood Shores, Tiburon, Mythic, and Black Box.
"EA is performing well, with quality, sales and segment share up so far this year," said CEO John Riccitiello.
"We are making tough calls to cut cost in targeted areas and investing more in our biggest games and digital businesses."
GamaSutra’s sources have apparently confirmed that an unknown amount of redundancies have already been made at Tiburon and Black Box (home of the Madden and Skate series respectively, while Warhammer Online developer Mythic has reportedly lost 80 staff already.
Also yesterday, EA announced a $300m USD acquisition of social gaming company Playfish, which creates games for Facebook, MySpace and the iPhone.
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EA, which makes the Rock Band series, also reported a net loss of $391m in the third quarter, compared with a loss of $310m in the same period last year.
The job losses are part of a restructuring plan to shift the company's focus to blockbuster games.
The layoffs are expected to save about $100m a year, EA said.
Playfish makes free games for social networking sites - such as Facebook and MySpace - and mobile phones.
Digital content such as that makes up about 12% of EA's revenue.
Although that area is growing, industry sales from traditional video games are declining.
"We are focusing on what works and what matters," said chief financial officer Eric Brown.