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Update: EA has denied the layoffs, telling MCV: “There are no lay-offs as such, we always have projects growing and morphing. At any given time there are new people coming in and others leaving. EA is growing and hiring and building teams to support the growing demand for digital games and services.”
Original story: Lower than expected sales of both Battlefield 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic means EA is preparing to lay off between 500 and 1,000 employees, reports StartupGrind.
“Estimates put Battlefield 3 sales around 13m units,” claims StartupGrind. “The company ‘chased’ the launch dumping an estimated $30m into incremental marketing after the game launched according to one source within EA.”
The site adds: “The same thing was done for Star Wars to extend its run and try to improve sales. Star Wars sell through is estimated to now be around 3m units, but the subscriptions which are needed for an MMO to payoff are already declining.”
And the speculation doesn’t end there, with CEO John Riccitiello also coming under fire – the site clams he is coming under increasing internal pressure to cut costs.
EA is yet to comment.
Probably best to treat this as rumour for the time being, but lay-offs are so widespread in the current climate that up to 1,000 job losses at EA would not be a huge surprise.
