News + Trends
Wave of redundancies in the gaming industry continues: Unity lays off 1800 employees
by Domagoj Belancic
EA lays off employees and wants to focus on its own brands
1.3.2024
Translation: machine translated
EA is planning to restructure the future direction of the company. This will result in redundancies and the cancellation of games that have already been announced. Around five per cent of the workforce will be affected.
The gaming industry has been affected by massive restructuring and mass redundancies since 2023. Gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA) also announced further strategy changes and hundreds of redundancies in an internal memo on Wednesday. This was reported by the games magazine IGN. EA CEO Andrew Wilson justified the move by stating that the games industry is evolving rapidly and the needs of the gaming community have changed.
Dismissals are nothing new at EA either
All in all, around five per cent of the global workforce is affected by the restructuring. That is more than 600 employees. However, the company wants to try to integrate as many employees as possible into other projects. A very similar announcement was made eleven months ago. At that time, Wilson also announced a move away from game brands that were not contributing enough to EA's strategy - combined with hundreds of redundancies.
A Star Wars shooter has been cancelled
EA will focus on expanding its own brands, EA Sports games and "large online communities" in the future, says Wilson. The development of games with brands to which EA does not have exclusive rights, on the other hand, is to be scaled back. This affects a Star Wars game, for example, which was announced last year and was still in early development. Development will now be discontinued. According to rumours, the first-person shooter from studio Respawn Entertainment would have focused on a Mandalorian as the protagonist.
These are the games EA wants to focus on in the future
Despite the new focus on its own brands, EA wants to largely maintain its long-standing close cooperation with Disney and thus also Marvel. The development of the popular "Star Wars: Jedi" series will continue, and a third instalment has already been confirmed. Iron Man and Black Panther from the Marvel universe will also be retained.
The brands will also be continued
- Apex Legends
- Battlefield
- Dragon Age
- Mass Effect
- Need for Speed
- Skate
- The Sims
Restructuring and mass redundancies are almost the order of the day in the gaming and tech industry at the moment. Just a few days ago, Sony announced the closure of a London studio and 900 redundancies. My colleague Phil wrote an article about this. Domi reports on other recent layoffs in this article:
Domi.
Header image: Barone Firenze
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
Gaming
Follow topics and stay updated on your areas of interest
14 comments
later