Electronic Arts is planning to lay off 1,000 employees, approximately 10% of their employees. In this layoff their also consolidating EA Black Box back into EA Canada. EA Black Box was spun off as a studio outside of EA Canada to work on such titles as Need for Speed but, with the layoffs arriving, they’re going to be merging the remainder of EA Black Box into EA Canada by June 2009. The remaining EA Black Box employees will continue working on Skate 2.
The pink slips should be issued by March 31, 2009 and we’re hoping the folks that have lost their jobs will find new jobs as soon as possible. An Electronic Arts representative said:
“This does not mean that the Black Box studio is closing. The studio is moving to our Burnaby campus to share the facility with EAC and other EA teams that operate out of our state-of-the-art facility. We will operate two distinct studios, each with their own distinct culture and teams, out of our Burnaby facility.” (gamespot)
EA hasn’t mentioned any specific franchise cancellation but we’re going to assume something is going to slip, it’s hard to imagine a company can lose 1,000 employees without impacting business operations. If EA was able to layoff 1,000 people without impacting day-to-day business, then they’re definitely hurting in the management department because that would be a ton of waste.
Big companies may cut costs during hard times but they said they’re, “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.”
We’re curious just how much EA is willing to risk on “creative” endevours considering publishers are already hesitant to break new ground. The next few years should yield great opportunities for smaller developers to put on their creative hat and open new doors and opportunities for themselves.
Hi guys.
Thank you for the episode and congratulations to number 700 …. What an amount of episodes!
I respect your work, even if am not able to listen to every episode. Thank you so much for hundreds of hours of entertainment!
Regarding this special episode I can’t say so much sadly 🙁
I don’t play and I never played any COD or guilty gear … so … can’t say anything about that :/
About modding: I never cared about any mods for any game. Normally I buy games because I like them the way they are and not because I can or have to mod them.
The only game I played the last weeks was some magic the gathering. I downloaded some smaller games to my switch cause I am flying to Miami next week, so I needed something for the flight 🙂
The only game i am looking forward is Silksong … everything else did not catch me at all :/
Sorry for not commenting really constructive or interesting …
Keep on the good work and please stay healthy!
Greetings from Germany,
Ralf