Massive lay-offs at EA....

[Mahdi]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6239401.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

Wow.  Good thing the economy is fixed!

[Dunenewt]

Some strange comments on there:

"Urgh. I don't like where this is going. EA is the closest thing to a friendly big brother that we gamers have. Activision will have free reign over the industry if EA collapses."

[Nyerguds]

lol what... EA, friendly?

[Tezcatlipoca]

lol what... EA, friendly?

My thoughts exactly.

[Dunenewt]

I obviously missed the point where EA became this big caring friendly company...

[Xaroth]

massive, and only 1500? bit exaggeration innit?

To put things in line:

EA's Game Development Studios:

Global Headquarters

- Redwood Shores, California

Regional headquarters

- Geneva Switzerland

- Singapore

Studios:

- BioWare, Edmonton, Canada;

- Black Box, Vancouver, Canada;

- Bright Light, Guildford, U.K.;

- Criterion, Guildford, U.K.;

- Digital Illusions, Stockholm, Sweden;

- EA Montr

[Sneakgab]

''So they are getting rid of 1500, but 1300 of those are in a restructuring plan.. that's not laying off 1500, that's laying off 200 and giving 1300 a choice of relocation...''

If ''headcount reduction'' does not mean firing, then what the feck does it mean?

Well, forget that momentarily:

''In a press release, EA has now officially confirmed that it is laying off 1,500 employees as part of a general restructuring.''

Laying off here also means giving a relocation choice?

As far as I know, ''restructuring'' is usually a euphemism for huge lay-offs.

''n a conference call with analysts, CEO John Riccitiello said that as of September 30, the company had 8,820 employees, meaning it is letting 17 percent of its global payroll go.''

This quote is doubly significant. First of all, if their payroll is  being reduced, then unless they are reducing wages (at the same time as ''restructuring'') they are clearly firing people.

Secondly, as you can see the company had 8,820 employees, so a firing of 1500 is significant (17%).

''The layoffs come just nine months after EA cut its payroll by 11 percent, or 1,100 employees''

So in other words in less than a year they've cut 2600 employees from their 9920 workforce (26%). About 1 in every 4 guys fired.

[Nyerguds]

The C&C4 team is amongst the layoffs. After C&C4, they're gone.