Electronic Arts EA, a publisher of FIFA, announced on Wednesday that it would lay off 6 percent of its workforce and reduce office space. The company said that EA's restructuring plan is expected to incur between $170 million and $200 million in charges. The data from March 2022 shows that EA had over 12,500 employees.
EA is the brand behind the 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 on 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 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 have not changed much this year, and spending on video game content 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.
Technology firms have been hit hard by layoffs. There are layoffs at companies such as Meta, Amazon, Google and Twitter. Both Google and Amazon laid off 12,000 employees, while Meta and Amazon had conducted two rounds of layoffs. Amazon has fired 27,000 employees and Meta has removed 21,000 employees from its workforce.