Electronic Arts has joined the tech layoffs wave, laying off 6% of its workforce or around 800 workers.
The Redwood City video game maker of titles including “The Sims” and the “FIFA” and “Madden NFL” franchises also plans to cut real estate spending.
“As we drive greater focus across our portfolio, we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy, reviewing our real estate footprint, and restructuring some of our teams,” CEO Andrew Wilson said in a staff memo Wednesday.
Some affected workers will be offered roles on other projects, he said. The company, also known as EA, had 12,900 workers as of mid-2022.
The video game industry hasn’t seen as many layoffs as other tech sectors like social media and enterprise software. But cuts are spreading as growth has slowed compared to the early days of the pandemic.
San Francisco-based Twitch, the video game streaming site owned by Amazon, laid off over 400 workers last week. In January, San Francisco’s Unity Software, which makes a popular game engine, laid off 284 workers, and Los Angeles-based Riot Games, maker of “League of Legends,” laid off 46 workers.
EA expects $170 million to $200 million in expenses related to the moves. The company reported revenue of $7.3 billion last year and has a market capitalization of $32 billion, making it one of the world’s largest video game companies. The company’s net bookings fell 9.1% to $2.34 billion in its most recent fiscal quarter, the biggest drop in two years.
It isn’t yet clear how many EA layoffs will be in California. The company has not filed any recent WARN mass layoff notices with California officials as of Thursday, according to the state Employment Development Department.
In January, the company said 70 workers would be laid off in Chatsworth (Los Angeles County), related to the cancellation of the “Apex Mobile” and “Titanfall Legends” phone games that were in development. Another 105 employees were laid off due to the closure of its Industrial Toys Studio facility in Pasadena.
In other recent Bay Area layoffs, Newark-based electric car company Lucid said this week it would cut 1,300 jobs. Corte Madera-based RH, formerly Restoration Hardware, said it was laying off around 440 workers last week.
Reach Roland Li: roland.li@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @rolandlisf
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