EA has reportedly laid off some employees from the Apex Legends community team working at Respawn Entertainment. This move related to the Apex Legends team comes in the wake of a layoff announcement made by the California-based publisher last month.
29.02.2024 - 13:03 / rockpapershotgun.com / Andrew Wilson / Laura Miele / Marcus Lehto
In Shakespeare's Anthony And Cleopatra, said famous woman says "Give to a gracious message an host of tongues, but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt." I.e., when you have good news you can go round the houses, but if you have bad news - like sending an all-hands email to the staff at EA to let them know that, less than a year after the last round of layoffs, a further 5% of them are getting booted - then you should just come out and say it as quickly and simply as possible.
This is, apparently, not a sentiment ever internalised by Andrew Wilson, EA's CEO. Yesterday, when he announced to everyone at EA that a bunch of them were losing their jobs (again), he first spent three paragraphs talking about how EA is doing great, leading the industry, getting increasing engagement from fans, optimising their global footprint and sunsetting games oh yep, there it is, that's the "you're about to be unemployed" language right there. The company is moving away from "the development of future licensed IP" and toward "our owned IP, sports, and massive online communities". Therefore: 670 ish devs (by Eurogamer's count) must go.
In another message, EA's president of EA entertainment and technology Laura Miele revealed that, related to this, they've cancelled the Star Wars FPS game Respawn were working on, though it sounds like a new Jedi game is in the works. They've also entirely shut down the Battlefield standalone single-player studio Ridgeline, after game director Marcus Lehto left (under his own steam).
It's sort of bleakly funny to announce you're focusing on online communties when everyone has just decided they have live service fatigue. I'm not sure that EA are in the best position vis. their own IP, either. A lot of the devs they jettisoned in 2023 were veterans at BioWare, meaning deep bites have been taken out of the knowledge base on some of EA's most famous franchises. I'm not best placed to talk about sports stuff, but I understand players of sports games never have any complaints and there are no simmering issues that may snowball into huge problems one day.
If you want to feel your intelligence be mildly insulted by reading 500 words of business-speak-that-seems-quite-disingenuous-when-you-get-right-down-to-it, Wilson's message has been shared on EA's official website. The bit where he says people will be let go doesn't actually even say that. The quote is: "In this time of change, we expect these decisions to impact approximately 5 percent of our workforce. I understand this will create uncertainty and be challenging for many who have worked with such dedication and passion and have made important contributions to our company."
I really hate the "our business is doing better than
EA has reportedly laid off some employees from the Apex Legends community team working at Respawn Entertainment. This move related to the Apex Legends team comes in the wake of a layoff announcement made by the California-based publisher last month.
Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment has suffered a round of layoffs as part of wider cuts at parent company Electronic Arts.
Apex Legends developer Respawn is the latest studio to be affected by EA layoffs.
Around two dozen Respawn employees have been laid off, part of a series of ongoing cuts at EA that will ultimately see around 5 percent of the company's workers lose their jobs.
The creators of the Sims 4 Electronic Arts CEO has expressed how they believe that video game development can be made easier but still be done successful even with the use of AI, which is a interesting option to give in such a time where everyone is against artificial intelligence.
Look for Apex Legends to begin to expand past just the traditional battle royale format in the coming year as part of an overall plan to grow the community and evolve the IP.
Even as they cancel games and carry out mass layoffs, EA see sunny skies ahead for Respawn's free-to-play battle royale shooter Apex Legends, with CEO Andrew Wilson outlining plans to "expand beyond the traditional battle royale universe".
Apex Legends players can expect to start seeing the game “expand beyond the traditional battle royale universe” over the coming year as Electronic Arts looks to attract more players to the franchise.
EA head Andrew Wilson has some potentially controversial, but also oddly optimistic, things to say about AI.
The CEO of US publishing giant Electronic Arts, Andrew Wilson, has been espousing the supposed benefits of generative AI for game development.
Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson has outlined the transformative impact he believes generative artificial intelligence can have on the company and the wider games business over the next five years.
Just a day after Sony confirmed it's laying off 900 PlayStation employees across its first-party studios, publisher EA has announced it's doing the same. In the region of 670 workers — or around five per cent of the company's workforce — will lose their jobs as the EA Sports FC, Battlefield distributor moves «away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry».