Rumours abound that EA may have cut over 100 staff
Publisher EA has confirmed to Develop that rumours of job losses across the organisation are correct.
“We have announced a small number of job eliminations,” an EA US spokesperson told Develop.
“As you know, seasonal roll-offs that follow game launches are common and vital to maintaining a healthy business. Because so many of our games ship in the holiday quarter, the team size adjustments tend to follow in the same timeframe.
“However, EA is growing and several of our studios are looking to hire talented people.”
Ambiguity still surrounds the exact number of losses, though. Rumours on Twitter via 3D Realms’ boss George Broussard suggest the number could be in excess of 100.
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1UP, meanwhile, claims that the losses centre around the teams working on EA Sports Active, Skate and NBA Elite, with the latter brand having now been handed over to EA Tiburon following its recent delay.
Story originally appeared on MCV
EA should know better. For a start, they are large enough to keep studios rolling with projects if they had a little forethought.
We can't all keep pretending that the games industry is in anyway like the film industry, where people can have 3 month contracts and just walk around the corner for their next gig. Most studios are cities apart.
I wonder how often members of the management get laid off?
This is standard operating procedure - the games are done in time for xmas - one batch of developers kicked out - come the new year - next batch are brought in - rinse and repeat.
This is why the games industry is called the "meat grinder"
