Electronic Arts or EA as it is most well known, has recently announced that it will be rebranding its two main divisions, EA Entertainment Technology & Central Development and EA Sports.
The first department, EA Entertainment, was previously labeled EA Games. Andrew Wilson, the CEO of EA, spoke on the developer’s website about the change and says he believes this restructuring will allow department leaders an opportunity to expand their “creative ownership” as well as “financial accountability.” Wilson intends to remain the CEO of the company as it undergoes restructuring and works through the growing pains of such organizational changes.
While it’s clear Wilson wants to promote the changes as a positive spin for EA, business insiders are questioning what this means for the company. It was recently reported in March of this year that EA was laying off nearly six percent of its work force and that more job losses would be coming in June. Now that June is nearing its end and EA is further disrupting the organization’s internal system it raises questions as to what will remain of the company by the end of such changes.
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This also seems to indicate that EA is making big discussions out of concern for the company as a whole. If Wilson is asking EA leaders such as Laura Miele, president of EA Entertainment, and Cam Weber, president of EA Sports, to work on “financial accountability” it has to make one wonder about the future of the entire company in the gaming industry.
New Days Are Ahead for EA, But Are They Good Days Ahead?
Anyone who is familiar with gaming, knows that EA has been playing a major role in AAA title development since the early 1980’s. EA Sports has been the key to creating some of gamings greatest athletic titles such as FIFA, PGA Tour, Madden NFL, NBA Live, and more. In 2011, Forbes considered EA Sports to be the eighth most valuable sports brand in the world. EA also owns massive influential developers such as BioWare known for the Mass Effect trilogy as well as Mass Effect: Andromeda. It owns DICE and Respawn Entertainment, which have contracts with the Star Wars gaming franchise. EA has some original games that have also influenced the market such as It Takes Two and A Way Out, which are both Hazelight Studios titles.
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As EA rebrands and restructures, leaving behind staff and leadership, it is raising concern that the industry will forever be affected by these changes. While Andrew Wilson can try to phrase the leadership disruption as something that will increase the value, business, and growth of EA, the company cannot hide the fact that people are losing their jobs over these decisions. In the current state of gaming, where titles are no longer fully ready to play without gamers having to wait months for a slew of patches to fix development errors, this seems like a bothersome next step as to the quality of future EA games. Fans of EA are begging for more complete titles, while EA is begging its own staff to be more financially responsible. As EA moves forward, we will find in the coming months if these changes have been the means to an end that the company is searching to find.
If you are a fan of EA games, then keep an eye out for Immortals of Aveum on August 22, 2023 and Madden NFL 24 on August 18, 2023, which are the next titles to be released. As EA moves forward with these games we will see how they are impacted by new leadership.
Source: Eurogamer
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