EA Job Cut Scope Clarified After BioWare Closure as Layoffs Hit Respawn, Maxis, Full Circle, EA Motive and Más

EA announced overnight that it is closing the Mass Effect and Dragon Age studio BioWare as part of a new round of cuts that eliminate 400 roles across the publisher. While it confirmed that BioWare’s 50 workers are affected and that Skate studio Ripple Effect is being downsized, it did not say where the other 350 job cuts would come from.

Now, however, new information has emerged revealing that The Sims studio Maxis, Battlefield support studio Ripple Effect, and EA Motive are all impacted by layoffs, alongside Full Circle and BioWare. That is according to Vertical Slice, citing an “anonymous source” supported by corroborating information on LinkedIn.

Maxis senior director Anna Huerta and three Ripple Effect artists — Brandon Garcia, Corey Thomas, and Turner Spring — confirmed their departure from EA on LinkedIn. Catheryn Grant, operations product manager at both Ripple Effect and Respawn, also revealed she was among those impacted, as was EA Motive’s senior gameplay designer Jamieson Shearer. Full Circle’s senior designer David Milne and seasonal creative director John Epler are affected too.

In a memo to staff shared overnight, EA said it had paused development of an unannounced Sims project called Project Lotus in order to focus on a different title dubbed Project Evergreen. The company also said it was downsizing Full Circle to “create an experience that keeps [players] engaged over the long-term”, so there was already some suggestion those studios would face job cuts.

Más surprising, though, are the cuts at Respawn, a studio EA said it would be investing “heavily” in to support the growth of free-to-play shooter Apex Legends. Respawn is also co-developing a new project alongside DICE, which is reportedly Star Wars: Battlefront 3. By the same token, EA said it’s throwing its “full weight behind” Motive Studio’s Iron Man game and Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi sequel, its only two action-adventure projects currently in the works.

This is the first round of layoffs at EA since the company was fully acquired by a consortium made up of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, investment firm Silver Lake, and private equity company Affinity Partners earlier this year. The trio acquired EA in the summer for $55bn in one of the largest leveraged buyout deals ever.

When the deal closed, EA told debt investors it would cut $700m in annual costs, including $170m in “organisational efficiencies”. At the time, many feared that would translate to major layoffs.

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Microsoft has revealed how much its Xbox cloud gaming service is going to cost, with 50 hours of stream-time selling for an introductory price of $11.99.

This information comes from a post on the official Xbox news website, which explains that starting today, Xbox Insiders will be able to stream games using the paid service without needing an active Game Pass subscription. This comes ahead of a planned rollout to all Xbox players in November. These paid packs provide an ad-free version of the free cloud gaming service revealed earlier this year.

The full suite of introductory prices are as follows:

• 10 hours of playtime for $3.99
• 25 hours of playtime for $7.99
• 50 hours of playtime for $11.99

Microsoft previously revealed that monthly time limits will be placed on its paid Xbox cloud gaming service, though it insisted only a fraction of players would run into this cut-off point. A report claimed a 15-hour cap placed on the Game Pass Ultimate cloud gaming service was present as that’s the moment Xbox starts losing money. Offering a cloud gaming service requires server infrastructure, compute costs, and network and bandwidth costs.

As an aside, Sony’s defunct cloud gaming service PlayStation Now used to charge $9.99 for a month of streamed game time, more than a decade ago.

Xbox is currently in the midst of a massive restructuring process, in which more than 3,000 employees are to be laid off from the company. In a recent report, additional waves of layoffs are said to be planned for later this month, November, and January.

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