Game developer Electronic Arts announces 1500 job cuts
CEO says they are 'transforming' the company
Yesterday morning, game publisher Electronic Arts announced the purchase of Playfish, a social game developer (think Facebook games) for at least $300 million, and as much as $400 million depending on "certain performance milestones" achieved by Dec 31, 2011. See the full release here.
Yesterday afternoon, Electronic Arts announced they were laying off 1500 employees from their existing studios, with 1300 of the cuts in the form of a restructuring plan scheduled to be completed by March 31, 2010. This in spite of quotes such as "EA is performing well, with quality, sales and segment share up so far this year." (EA CEO John Riccitiello) and ""We met our second quarter expectations and delivered a record quarter for revenue." (EA CFO Eric Brown). You can read the financial summary here.
The Escapist has been gathering information and claims that the initial cuts came primarily from four development houses: Tiburon, Mythic, Black Box, and Redwood Shores. This is still firmly in the category of rumor; EA hasn't made any official announcements. Tiburon is the house that handles the Madden Football franchise, which seems like an odd place to start making cuts. Madden is a yearly staple with sports gamers. Mythic is the house that handles a lot of the MMO work for EA, in particular Warhammer Online. Now, Escapist is basing their intel on a twitter user who claims to volunteer at Mythic (and who seems to be working hard at turning this situation into her 15 minutes of fame), but if this person is to be believed, Mythic lost 40% of its workforce today. That doesn't bode well for Warhammer Online fans. On the other hand, Mythic Producer Josh Drescher tweets: What makes bad situations worse is when people who know nothing keep getting quoted as "sources" after posting incorrect, random info. So the verdict is still very much out on the validity of these numbers.
Anyway, so what's the point? Well, more speculation, but from the outside looking in, EA is downsizing its 'traditional' gaming resources (consoles, PC) and building up its casual division.
Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world
Esther Schindler
If the comments are ugly, the code is ugly
claird
SVG a graphics format for 21st century
pasmith
Take Chrome OS for a test spin
Sandra Henry-Stocker
Solaris Tip: Have Your Files Changed Since Installation?
jfruh
Android fragments vs. the iPhone monolith
mikelgan
What Gizmodo missed about the Pro WX Wireless USB disk drive
Sidekick: The Good News & the Bad News
Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
- mburton325
Join the conversation here
Quick, practical advice for IT pros. Made fresh daily.
Want to cash in on your IT savvy? Send your tip to tips@itworld.com. If we post it, we'll send you a $25 Amazon e-gift card.
