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It's looking like another grim summer for the videogame industry. Microsoft is eyeing up several studios to shutter, and the CEO of Epic Games says there's a tidal wave sweeping over the AAA business, which I'm sure is fine.
The next step in this macabre march comes from EA, which will reportedly be laying off an unknown number of staff ahead of its $55 billion sale to Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, which is set to have a whopping 93.4% stake when all is said and done. This comes courtesy of Kotaku, which claims it's spoken with sources inside the publisher, and shared an email sent to EA's customer support team.
EA claims it's axing these roles to "adapt how we work to better meet fans’ changing needs … As part of this evolution, we are making or proposing to make changes to some roles, creating new roles, and moving certain work to different teams, locations, or service partners."
Which is likely a bunch of business waffle. Layoffs after large acquisitions like this aren't at all uncommon—take Microsoft, which laid off 1,900 people after purchasing Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. As a matter of fact, the Saudi Arabia investment fund was also reported to be tightening its purse strings late last year.
The note here is that the trimming's happening before the acquisition, rather than afterwards—most likely due to the eye-watering $20 billion in loan debt EA has taken on to close the deal. But hey, the shareholders are in favour, and we wouldn't want to upset the shareholders, would we?
The incoming layoffs at EA include members across "recruitment, customer support, trust and safety, and IT teams", Kotaku reports, and will be a continuation of last year's rash of layoffs, which included:
- Laying off BioWare veterans and basically closing the door on Dragon Age for good in January.
- Laying off hundreds of employees in April, cancelling two projects.
- Cancelling the Black Panther game in May, closing the studio making it.
On the "bright" side, EA's CEO took in 260 times the median salary of the company. I'm sure this is healthy and normal.
Saudi Arabia's incoming deal with the company has many concerned that it's part of the investment fund's ongoing efforts to "sportswash" the country's history of human rights violations.
EA reassures its staff that its values will "remain unchanged", despite the country's poor treatment of women and sexual minorities, as well as its documented crackdowns on political dissent. Meanwhile, individual games within EA are seeing withdrawals of public support over the deal, including The Sims—despite its dev team's promises that nothing will change, either.
