Electronic Arts Sees More Layoffs
Electronic Arts is facing even more layoffs.
Two major co-publishers are being shut down, resulting in massive layoffs for Electronics Arts. This just hasn’t been their year, and many gamers are likely finding smug satisfaction in it. After releasing SimCity 5 and a patch that only made it worse, gamers everywhere expressed outrage, even getting banned from the game just for complaining about it. Then Electronic Arts, after learning they were voted the worst company of the year, reportedly responded with utter sarcasm.
We’re thinking the reason Electronic Arts was voted so strongly that way is that instead of apologizing, they banned complainers, censored their own customer support number on their forums, and issued a snarky retort about how much worse other companies are. It’s called karma.
One such co-publisher was EA Partners, whose games included Rock Band, Portal 2, and Crysis. Rock Band was perhaps the most ambitious of the group, taking the home-based music performance genre to a new level with singing and drums, and the inclusion of some of the biggest bands of our time. Portal 2 was the sequel to a game that blew our minds with a whole new element of gameplay, where your weapon actually created doorways that bent physics in creative ways. Crysis was a sneak-or-shoot first-person romp through a futuristic war setting.
Also facing the layoff trend at Electronic Arts is PopCap Vancouver and Quickline Games, adding to a long trend of layoffs in the gaming industry.
Electronic Arts has said:
“In recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile. This has led to some difficult decisions to reduce the workforce in some locations. We are extremely grateful for the contributions made by each of our employees – those that are leaving EA will be missed by their colleagues and friends. These are hard but essential changes as we focus on delivering great games and showing players around the world why to spend their time with us.”
What do you think about the latest bunch of layoffs at Electronic Arts?
