As the holiday season comes to an end, the major corporations of gaming are counting their losses as the decline of the economy drains the sales lower and lower. EA has just announced its total loss of earnings over the holiday season and it comes to an impressive amount of $641 million bucks. Wow.. first glance at that number really makes you wonder, “What in the hell happened?” and “What are they going to do about that?” Well, what any other major corporation would do when it experiences a loss in profits to that degree.. lay offs! Thats right, EA will increase the number of job cuts to 1,100 which equates to 11% of its workforce. The layoffs will be completed by March 2009 and also coming with that will be closing of many facilities, moreso than originally planned.
According to EA executives, the lay offs will be at all levels of employees from: managers, directors, VP’s and above. Also, they will be freezing raises and cut 30% of the companies SKUS in 2010. The games that were major sellers for EA during the holiday sale that gave the company its impressive $1.74 billion dollars were the following:
FIFA 09
Rock Band 2
Need for Speed Undercover
Rock Band
Left 4 Dead
Dead Space
Madden NFL 09
Littlest Pet Shop
NBA Live 09
Mirror’s Edge.