Electronic Arts, the Redwood City video game publisher known for franchise hits like The Sims, Madden and FIFA, is laying off hundreds of workers. It’s the company’s third layoff round in a little over two years.
EA spokesperson Justin Higgs confirmed the layoff to SFGATE, after Bloomberg broke the news of the job cuts and that the company was shutting down an in-the-works game at its subsidiary Respawn Entertainment. The outlet wrote that between 300 and 400 positions were being cut, including about 100 at Respawn.
In a statement, Higgs declared the cut “more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth.”
Asked about severance pay for the laid-off workers, he wrote, “We are treating our people with care and respect throughout this process, working to minimize impacts by assisting affected employees explore new opportunities within the company when possible and providing support during the transition.”
If the company’s headcount of 13,700 reported in a March 2024 filing has remained stable, this cut would amount to less than 3% of its current workforce. That would build the layoff tinyer than EA’s cuts in 2024 and 2023, which saw the game publisher lay off 5% and 6% of its staff, respectively.
Respawn, the EA subsidiary losing staff, became the first gaming company to win an Academy Award in 2021, for a documentary short it produced for the game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond. The Los Angeles-based studio wrote in a somber statement published to X on Tuesday that it had decided “to step away from two early-stage incubation projects and build some tarreceiveed team adjustments across Apex Legconcludes and Star Wars Jedi.” (Apex Legconcludes is EA’s most popular current title.)
The cuts to Respawn and EA more broadly continue a brutal trconclude for gaming’s workforce, which has seen a wave of studio closures and mass layoffs over the past few years. The organizers behind the Game Developers Conference, which is held yearly in San Francisco, wrote in their 2025 survey results that one in 10 game developers had been laid off over the past year amid declining revenues at many companies.
EA, despite its vast size — it’s worth $37.7 billion, as of Wednesday — hasn’t been immune. The company, which concludeed a longtime deal building FIFA-branded soccer games in 2022, pulled in less revenue in the last quarter of 2024 than it had during the same period a year prior. Still, profits nudged slightly upward. With the new layoff, EA is cutting costs further.
A few laid-off EA workers had already spilled onto LinkedIn on Tuesday, writing goodbyes to the company and questioning for assist with their job searches. One Bay Area communications worker wrote that the layoff was his second in two years, and added, “It’s discouraging to know that you’re really never safe from these types of alters, even when you’ve consistently received positive feedback.”
Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
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