Despite earning record revenues lately, AAA video game publishers are cutting costs as much as possible. Activision Blizzard laid off a significant portion of its workforce in February, and now Electronic Arts (EA) is following suit; for better or worse.

As reported by Kotaku's Jason Schreier, EA has opted to lay off a total of 350 employees – about 4 percent of its workforce – across marketing, publishing, and various other departments. Strangely, those are the same sorts of employees Activision Blizzard let go last month.

Whether this decision is being made to keep revenues and profits high for investors in the coming quarters is unknown, but EA claims this move is part of a larger attempt on the company's part to "better deliver" on its commitments, "refine" its organization, and "meet the needs" of its players.

It's not clear how letting its workers go will help EA accomplish those goals, but regardless of the specifics, the publisher's executives clearly view this debacle as a necessary evil.

"This is a difficult day. The changes we're making today will impact about 350 roles in our 9,000-person company," a company spokesperson said in a statement to Kotaku. "These are important but very hard decisions, and we do not take them lightly. We are friends and colleagues at EA, we appreciate and value everyone's contributions, and we are doing everything we can to ensure we are looking after our people to help them through this period to find their next opportunity."

EA says that terminated employees will receive full severance packages and "other" forms of assistance as they seek out alternate employment opportunities.

Apparently, this mass lay-off hasn't come completely out of left field for those in the know - the employees, to be specific. Kotaku claims that sources within the company have been expecting these firings after EA put "hiring and travel freezes" on the marketing department a few months ago.