FIFA, Need For Speed, The Sims game publisher EA lays off 6% employees

FIFA publisher, Electronic Arts (EA), announced on Wednesday that it would lay off about 6 per cent of its workforce and reduce its office space. EA's restructuring plan is expected to incur between $170 million and $200 million in charges, the company said. According to data from March 2022, EA had over 12,500 employees.  

EA is the brand behind popular games such as the FIFA soccer videogame franchise, The Sims, Star Wars, Battlefield series and even Need For Speed. The company will provide opportunities for employees to move to other projects, and for those who can't, the company will provide severance pay and additional benefits, CEO Andrew Wilson said in a blog post.

The video game industry has also been struggling with a slowdown in player spending, which has been exacerbated by decades-high inflation. According to a research by Circana, video game sales so far this year have been flat, and spending on video game content across platforms is down 2 per cent.

EA lowered its annual bookings forecast in January after delaying the release of a game based on the "Star Wars" franchise. The newly launched "Hogwarts Legacy" game from Warner Bros Discovery topped the video game sales charts in February, according to Circana.

Layoffs have been hitting technology firms hard. Companies including Meta, Amazon, Google and Twitter have announced layoffs. Google decided to lay off 12,000 employees whereas both Meta and Amazon have conducted two rounds of layoffs. Amazon has fired around 27,000 employees so far and Meta has decided to remove 21,000 employees from its workforce.

Also read: After job cuts, Facebook owner Meta planning lower bonus payouts for some employees: Report