14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts, which has just announced less than stellar financial results for the last quarter, says that it plans to cut another 4% of its staff positions in order to streamline its operations. The company also reveals that “at least nine” of the studios creating games for the publisher will be closed down or consolidated with others. All in all, about 1,000 people will be laid off at Electronic Arts as the videogaming industry is really beginning to feel the pinch of the worldwide economic crisis.
The studio whose name was unveiled is Black Box, the Vancouver based one that handled development for the latest Need for Speed game, the recently released Undercover, and Skate. The studio will be closed down and all its projects will be handled by another Electronic Arts owned arm in Burnaby, British Columbia. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Pandemic and EA Los Angeles are also directly affected by the restructuring.
EA says that it will save 120 million dollars each year as a result of its latest moves but on the short term, the company will suffer some losses as it incurs 65 million dollars in restructuring costs. The official statement said that “EA is implementing a plan to narrow its product portfolio to focus on hit games with higher margin opportunities. The company remains committed to taking creative risks, investing in new games, leading the industry in the growing mobile and online businesses, and delivering high-quality games to consumers.”
It seems that the process should be completed by April 1, 2009. And no, the lay offs are not a joke. We'll soon see how the lowered number of developers will affect the quality of Electronic Arts videogames.