EA Employees Are The Latest Impacted By Layoffs

Electronic Arts, the publisher behind titles like Madden NFL, Mass Effect, and Apex Legends, is laying off 350 employees from several divisions inside the company. The layoffs will mainly impact those working in marketing, publishing, and operations, and — according to Kotaku — have been expected by employees for some time.

"This is a difficult day," EA said in an email statement. "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."

According to EA, it is working to find new jobs inside the company for some affected, and those who choose to leave will be given severance and "other resources," though it's unclear at this time what those other resources might be.

EA is the most recent video game publisher to lay off a large swath of its employees, but it's certainly not the first. Activision Blizzard, a competing publisher, let 8 percent of its workforce go last month, putting hundreds of people out of work. And on the development side of things, layoffs have unfortunately become too commonplace as companies ramp up to meet demand, shedding staff later on as projects cross the finish line.

The layoffs are all but certain to amplify calls for industry unionization. Many who work in video games, whether its for a developer or a publisher, don't feel as though they're adequately appreciated or protected. Crunch, for instance, is a term that's become more widely known over the past few years, as it describes the insane hours employees work toward the end of a game's development cycle. Some who crunch do so willingly. Some feel pressured to work long hours with very little sleep. And some, when a game ultimately releases, are immediately let go as as companies move to make their financials look more impressive.

It all seems very broken, and though we're all more aware now of what's going on, we're not seeing a whole lot of change taking place. Here's to hoping that, at some point, we do.

Our thoughts go out to everyone affected by today's layoffs.