Earlier this week EA announced that it was sunsetting two mobile games and that it was cutting "small number" of staff attached to it mobile divisions, in particular those connected to its mobile racing games. That seems to have been a portent of what was to come as the company today announced it would be unilaterally shedding over six hundred staff, or about 5% of its total workforce. EA's CEO, Andrew Wilson, stated that the part of their logic with these cuts, as well as the amount, stems from the company "moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry." IGN reports that EA Sports, Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, Iron Man, Black Panther, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Dragon Age, Skate, and The Sims will be the properties that EA emphasizes moving forward.
This has resulted in EA confirming that it was cancelling several projects that were in development. As part of that, there are several sources confirming that Respawn's unannounced Star Wars first-person shooter is dead. Ridgeline Games, the studio currently assigned to make story campaigns for the Battlefield franchise, is being shut down entirely. Criterion Games, led by Danny Isaac and Darren White, will now be in charge of Battlefield's single-player campaigns, though that leaves the Need for Speed franchise without a studio.
Projects that seem to be confirmed as being "safe" are a new Star Wars Jedi Game, Black Panther and Iron Man. Also, BioWare, which faced major layoffs in 2023 seems to have been spared with CEO Andrew Wilson confirming the studio is still moving forward with Dragon Age: Dreadwolf followed by a new Mass Effect. That was slightly surprising, but maybe Dreadwolf has a bit of the sunk cost fallacy for them. I just have a hard time seeing how a company whose last project was Anthem would survive layoffs.
CEO Andrew Wilson's total compensation during the 2023 fiscal year was $20,659,002.
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