EA doubles layoffs

by Taylor Flatt on December 21st, 2008 at 5:32 pm EDT - 202 views

As the US economy continues to fall, the gaming industry is beginning to feel the effects.  EA is no execption and has announced that they are going to be laying off twice the people it projected at upwards to 10% of their workforce.  The layoffs will equate to about 1000 workers out of their 10,000 workforce.  EA has also commented that they will be shutting down some of their studios most notably their Black Box game studio.  With all the layoffs, they are hoping to save upwards of $120 million.

Although EA has a long record of closing studios, it seems that they have had a great year with the infamous release of SPORE and Mass Effect.  Surprisingly however, EA has had a terrible time trying to get rid of their holiday stock which was the main reason of doubling the layoffs.  But with these layoffs, EA reassures us that it would continue to invest into mobile and online games.

Source: NYTimes

EA’s PC Games Hit Steam

by Bradley Wint on December 21st, 2008 at 2:41 pm EDT - 221 views

Electronic Arts (EA) has partnered with Valve to make some of their more recent titles available via the popular game purchasing client, Steam. Some of the first games being made available are Spore, Need for Speed Undercover, Mass Effect, EA Sports FIFA Manager 2009 and much more. The partnership between the two companies will now allow for people anywhere in the globe to purchase PC titles via the Steam client.

“We are pleased to extend our holiday titles to gamers worldwide via Steam — a revolutionary technology that is one of the game industry’s most successful digital distribution services,” – EA COO, John Pleasants

Steam has been a popular tool for other companies to distribute their games, including some top names such as Activisio, SimBin, Atari and others.  Check out the Steam website for more details.

Source: Gamesutra