Electronic Arts (EA), the producer of FIFA, stated on Wednesday that it will lay off around 6% of its personnel and downsize its office space. The corporation expects its reorganization strategy to generate between $170 million and $200 million in charges. According to March 2022 figures, EA has more than 12,500 workers.
CEO Andrew Wilson said personnel may move to other initiatives.
EA is the company behind such popular game franchises as the FIFA soccer videogame series, The Sims, Star Wars, the Battlefield series, and Need For Speed. CEO Andrew Wilson stated in a blog post that the firm would give options for staff to relocate to other projects, and for those who cannot, the company will provide severance money and other benefits.
The video game business has also experienced a decline in player expenditure, which has been worsened by decades of inflation. Circana analysis indicates that video game sales have been flat so far this year, while expenditure on video game content across all platforms is down 2%.
EA cut its year bookings projection in January after postponing the release of a “Star Wars”-themed video game. According to Circana, the recently released “Hogwarts Legacy” game from Warner Bros. Discovery topped the video game sales charts in February.
Firms in the IT sector have been impacted hard by layoffs. Meta, Amazon, Google, and Twitter, among others, have announced layoffs. Google made the decision to lay off 12,000 people, whilst Meta and Amazon both completed two rounds of layoffs. Amazon has terminated around 27,000 employees to date, while Meta has chosen to lay off 21,000 workers.