EA Lays Off 350 People, Citing The "Changing World"

Despite the gaming industry's growth, we've seen numerous companies lay off employees of late, including significant ones at Activision Blizzard. Electronic Arts is the next company to confirm layoffs of its own, announcing today that about 350 people are losing their jobs.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson delivered the news via the company's official website. "Today we took some important steps as a company to address our challenges and prepare for the opportunities ahead," Wilson said. Of the company's roughly 9,000 employees, 350 people across the company's marketing, publishing, and operations teams will lose their jobs. This also includes operations in Japan and Russia, where the company is "ramping down our current presence [to] focus on different ways to serve our players in those markets."

You can read his full statement below:

"Today we took some important steps as a company to address our challenges and prepare for the opportunities ahead. As we look across a changing world around us, it’s clear that we must change with it. We’re making deliberate moves to better deliver on our commitments, refine our organization and meet the needs of our players. As part of this, we have made changes to our marketing and publishing organization, our operations teams, and we are ramping down our current presence in Japan and Russia as we focus on different ways to serve our players in those markets. In addition to organizational changes, we are deeply focused on increasing quality in our games and services. Great games will continue to be at the core of everything we do, and we are thinking differently about how to amaze and inspire our players.

"This is a difficult day. The changes we’re making today will impact about 350 roles in our 9,000-person company. These are important but very hard decisions, and we do not take them lightly. We are friends and colleagues at EA, we appreciate and value everyone’s contributions, and we are doing everything we can to ensure we are looking after our people to help them through this period to find their next opportunity. This is our top priority."