EA Is Cutting About 800 Jobs, or 6% of Workforce, and Reducing Office Space

Electronic Arts (EA) is cutting about 800 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, and reducing office space, the video game company said Wednesday. CNBC reports: The company expects to take impairment charges ranging from $170 to $200 million, according to an SEC filing. "As we drive greater focus across our portfolio, we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy, reviewing our real estate footprint, and restructuring some of our teams," CEO Andrew Wilson wrote in a note to employees. Layoffs are "the most difficult part, and we are working through the process with the utmost care and respect," he wrote. EA had just under 13,000 employees, according to a quarterly filing in March 2022.

I miss Dilbert. Adams got inFoxicated

[Tablizer]

"we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy"

PHB-to-English: "Trimming the bloat"

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[Rockoon]

"Preparing to buy some more indies"

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[jezwel]

"we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy"

PHB-to-English: "Trimming the bloat"

Cutting anything that isn't a sequel.

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[DMJC]

Cutting anything that isn't EA Sports and Call of Duty more like. EA could easily run a profitable business running on old IPs from the 90s. It's sad they choose to let those IPs rot in the vault, or gather pennies re-releasing the old versions with no updates or special/new features. There's a lot that could be done with the old IPs.

Re: I miss Dilbert. Adams got inFoxicated

[SirSlud]

Call of Duty isn't EA.

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[Opportunist]

Call of Battlefield, who cares which multiplayer shooter clone is theirs.

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[tlhIngan]

Adams killed Dilbert and is running a subscription service "Dilbert Reloaded". Supposedly it's a much improved version but for $80/month or something like that I'm not willing to try.

I believe he started it a couple of weeks ago when he took down the Dilbert website and replaced it with links to the subscription service.

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[alvinrod]

Did you mean $80/year or perhaps $8/month? I can't imagine paying that much yearly even though I generally found Dilbert pretty enjoyable. I can't see most people going for anything above $1/month.

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[tlhIngan]

Did you mean $80/year or perhaps $8/month? I can't imagine paying that much yearly even though I generally found Dilbert pretty enjoyable. I can't see most people going for anything above $1/month.

Could be. The site you have to sign up makes you create an account first before they hit you with the price list, so I'm relying on third party information on the actual prices. Scott Adams says you're paying for Dilbert plus his other thoughts and essays.

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[Tablizer]

Maybe he had been planning on this for while, wanting to vent his political views for once. It's kind of comparable to Howard Stern moving from FM radio to SiriusXM so he could use cruder language, as sexual topics were his favorite.

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[mjwx]

"we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy"

PHB-to-English: "Trimming the bloat"

Their sports franchises are floundering, they lost the FIFA license so FIFA 23 will be the last FIFA title (or at least the last EA title).

Same old same old

[pete6677]

EA is always cutting jobs.

New trend of cutting office space?

[bubblyceiling]

Cutting workforce, old new. But cutting office space? Will other businesses follow in cutting space?

Ideally iâ(TM)d imagine having rotating reservable office spaces for 30% capacity would be a good long term solutions. Teams & people can still get together while allowing WFH flexibility

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[thegarbz]

Will other businesses follow in cutting space?

What do you mean follow? EA is very much late to this game. Consolidation of office space was all the rage during COVID and for some companies even before. My own experiences is not only giving up office buildings, but actually sold off an entire campus, at the time leasing 5 of the buildings back with a long term view of getting rid of all of them. That became a short term view when everyone went home during COVID and found they didn't have buildings to get back to after the pandemic.

Another unsurprising correction

[thegarbz]

Based on drawing a trendline from 2010 through to 2020 EA should have about 11000 employees now in 2023. But like everyone in tech they went mental over-hiring in 2021 and 2022. They should be cutting 2000 jobs to put themselves back on track, and that's before you consider the state of the company losing the FIFA license, releasing absolutely terrible games with no player retention, etc.

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[Comrade Ogilvy]

A whole lot of tech companies are declaring ~7% cuts. It is just a fad among CEOs who want to seem to be doing something useful, when they have no ideas.

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[alvinrod]

7% is probably a safe number. No one has a good enough HR not to let a few idiots through and any large company will accumulate enough corporate detritus over the years to warrant a good spring clean from time to time. You could probably do it all the time if you just fired middle management. They just tend to waste time on both sides.

which is it

[John-after-logtime]

800 or 6%, pick one

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[Gibgezr]

Um, 6% of 13k is 780. That's a pretty good definition of "almost 800". So ya, it's both 6% and almost 800.

Get rid of the management of EA

[Targon]

Considering that EA has been run by people who don't have a CLUE about the game industry, or game development, the best thing EA could do would be to remove those from management that don't play games, have never played games, and have never had any real connection to game development. EA management has been running the game, and the studios that EA purchased into the ground, similar to the movie/TV industry where the people currently in charge have no skill or talent when it comes to understanding what i