EA to lay off around 670 people, sunset games, move away from future IPs

[midian182]

What just happened? Even the biggest game companies aren't immune from the spate of job cuts that have plagued the industry recently. Electronic Arts has announced that it is letting go of 5% of its worldwide staff, impacting around 670 people. Furthermore, it will also be "sunsetting" a number of games and moving away from certain licensed IPs. One of the canceled titles has been confirmed as Respawn's Star Wars FPS.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson told staff in note that the company is reacting to "accelerating industry transformation where player needs and motivations have changed significantly." He added that EA will be streamlining operations, with the cuts part of an ongoing effort to "optimize our global real estate footprint to best support our business."

It's interesting to learn that EA is moving away from the development of some future licensed IPs. A few of the games it currently has in the works include a third Jedi game, Iron Man, and Black Panther, but none of those are thought to be affected.

"This greater focus allows us to drive creativity, accelerate innovation, and double down on our biggest opportunities," said Wilson in a press release. "Including our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities--to deliver the entertainment players want today and tomorrow."

According to IGN, one in-development game that has definitely been canceled as part of EA's restructuring is an unnamed Star Wars FPS. It was said to feature a Mandalorian protagonist and take place during the height of the Galactic Empire. It was being made by Respawn, the studio behind the excellent Titanfall 2 and Apex Legends. This is the second time Respawn has faced this situation: EA canceled Titanfall 3 ten months into its development.

Most of those impacted by EA's cuts will come from support teams. The company says it hopes to move developers from canceled projects onto other teams.

EA laid off 775 people, or 6% of its workforce, last March as part of its "restructuring." It also implemented further layoffs at Codemasters, which EA owns, in December.

We're just two months into 2024, yet there have been approximately 8,000 layoffs made by gaming studios so far this year. That figure represents 80% of the roughly 10,000 industry job losses recorded throughout all of 2023.

It was only this week that PlayStation let go of 900 people and closed its London studio. Supermassive, Deck Nine, and Cloud Imperium Games are just some of the other big names to have made job cuts this year.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/102071-ea-lay-off-around-670-people-sunset-games.html

 

[i like foxes]

I ve got Star Wars Fallen Order . Although its beautiful it s hard to play .I regret having bought it .The game torments me .I often stuck like in a labyrinth .

 

[toooooot]

I ve got Star Wars Fallen Order . Although its beautiful it s hard to play .I regret having bought it .The game torments me .I often stuck like in a labyrinth .

I am pretty bad in games myself.
But I noticed that I have best memories from the games that were hard and I still beat them.
Meanwhile, I did not finish a lot of games that were easier.
This is the thing with a lot of mobile games. The yare not games, they are distractors.
You look at the phone, click few buttons and watch animation, done.

 

[i like foxes]

I am pretty bad in games myself.
But I noticed that I have best memories from the games that were hard and I still beat them.
Meanwhile, I did not finish a lot of games that were easier.
This is the thing with a lot of mobile games. The yare not games, they are distractors.
You look at the phone, click few buttons and watch animation, done.

I dont give up easily but this is too much . Hate this going along walls .The same is in Titanfall 2

 

[The Talking Tech]

In EA's golden years they were always involved with licensed IPs....some of the most fun and very well made games were:

Lord of the Rings (PS2/Xbox)
StarWars Battlefield (original Xbox version)
Harry Potter (PS2/Xbox)
James Bond (PS2/Xbox)
Monopoly (Xbox 360)
DefJam Fight for NY (O.M.G)

EA stepping away from licensed IPs is a huge mistake by forgetting that they don't need quantity BUT quality on what they choose to work on.

 

[toooooot]

In EA's golden years they were always involved with licensed IPs....some of the most fun and very well made games were:

Lord of the Rings (PS2/Xbox)
StarWars Battlefield (original Xbox version)
Harry Potter (PS2/Xbox)
James Bond (PS2/Xbox)
Monopoly (Xbox 360)
DefJam Fight for NY (O.M.G)

EA stepping away from licensed IPs is a huge mistake by forgetting that they don't need quantity BUT quality on what they choose to work on.

I might be wrong but I see a pattern. The quality of their games goes down. They make more new games as quick as possible saving as much as possible on quality control. Then they repeat even faster cutting even more corners. They dropped FIFA license in 2023 and even more stupidly made some very controversial decisions in the game which turned away who knows how many people. As a result, I witnessed fastest discount to just 20 bucks from 70 it is originally. Then there are other powers to be playing as well. I mean the powers who do not care about games or their quality, but they shape what sort of games we receive, not very good.

 

[erickmendes]

EA's stock share is keeping it's value over time for 5 years even with fluctuations while Activision Blizzard went from 80 to 40 in the same period... So I don't think it's a matter of the company not making enough cash... still Microsoft gobbled Activision Blizzard perhaps because it's IPs.

I know it's a little far fetched but I can only think that these cutoffs could be some sign that these companies are investing on some sort of AI assisted framework so fewer people can get the same results.

By the way I always think that these "powers" are mainly the stock share price.

 

[The Talking Tech]

I might be wrong but I see a pattern. The quality of their games goes down. They make more new games as quick as possible saving as much as possible on quality control. Then they repeat even faster cutting even more corners. They dropped FIFA license in 2023 and even more stupidly made some very controversial decisions in the game which turned away who knows how many people. As a result, I witnessed fastest discount to just 20 bucks from 70 it is originally. Then there are other powers to be playing as well. I mean the powers who do not care about games or their quality, but they shape what sort of games we receive, not very good.

Cutting corners or straight out bad games have nothing to do with the game being licensed...just look at their own newest Battlefield and Need for Speed games, they are terrible in comparison to their golden years.

What I'm saying is that EA stepping away from licensed IPs is a terrible business strategy and a huge limitation for the company overall.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Its not an inherently bad plan, the problem is its EA we're talking about.

If they put in some real work to make a unique (but inevitably somewhat generic) fantasy, sci-fi, post apocalyptic etc universes, they could theoretically build their games off of those IPs and keep the licensing fees themselves.

Bioware successfully pulled off this strategy with Dragon Age and Mass Effect, deciding to make their own well thought out Fantasy and Sci-fi IPs instead of paying to make other people's stuff (D&D, Star Wars, etc) and it worked fantastically for them until, ironically, EA got involved.

 

[FaTaL]

Finally someone is cleaning house.... these AAA companies have produced crap for the last 4 years and the gaming market has gotten extremely saturated... There are way too many options out there right now.... the focus should be more on quality and not quantity.

EA / Ubisoft / Activision can all take a page from indie dev's book ...Larian Studios, Arrowhead, etc.

 

[dirtyferret]

.... these AAA companies have produced crap for the last 4 years and the gaming market has gotten extremely saturated... There are way too many options out there right now.... the focus should be more on quality and not quantity.

EA / Ubisoft / Activision can all take a page from indie dev's book ...Larian Studios, Arrowhead, etc.

Did you just start gaming four years ago? I can't recall the last EA/Ubi/Activision game I enjoyed. In fact I don't think there has been a good SW game since KoTOR I & II.