Electronic Arts, the California-based video game company best known for games like “Madden” and “Apex Legends,” recently announced it will lay off 350 employees.
In a statement posted on the company’s website, Electronic Arts’ CEO Andrew Wilson said that the changes will affect the operations, marketing, and publishing teams. The company also plans to ramp down its presence in Japan and Russia.
“These are important but very hard decisions, and we do not take them lightly,” Wilson wrote. “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.”
EA is no small company. It employs about 9,000 people and is one of the largest video game companies in the world. So, seeing restructuring at this level is a big deal. Wolf also stated that the company is “deeply focused on increasing quality in our games and services.”
Although Wolf didn’t lay out why the company is laying off so many people in his statement, it’s not hard to put two and two together. Only last month, EA stocks saw their largest drop in a decade after it missed holiday sales estimates, as reported by MarketWatch.
“Battlefield V” — in particular — sold 1 million fewer copies than executives had previously anticipated. EA also lowered its expected annual revenue from $5.15 billion to $4.875 billion.
Overall, EA’s layoffs fall in a much larger trend of video game companies struggling to stay afloat and rake in expected earnings. Activision Blizzard, another gaming giant, laid off about 800 employees in February.
At this time, it’s unclear just how these layoffs will impact EA moving forward
