Report: EA Partners to close

EA’s third-party publishing division EA Partners is to be shut down, according to a reoprt.

Multiple anonymous sources are said to have confirmed the news to Game Informer, although EA has yet to officially comment on the matter.

It is thought that games set to be published through the label that have yet to be released, such as Insomniac’s Fuse and Respawn Entertainment’s debut title, will not be affected by the closure.

More information on the matter is expected during EA’s earnings call for the last fiscal year on May 7th.

The EA Partners program was created as a third-party publishing division, and a number of developers have taken advantage of the scheme for their releases, such as Crytek with its Crysis series, Valve and the Orange Box and Left 4 Dead titles and Harmonix for the Rock Band franchise.

The news of the potential closure of the EA Partners label comes as the publishing giant enacts company-wide restructuring which has seen significant layoffs.

Earlier this month it was reported there had been major layoffs at EA Mobile Montreal, with speculation suggesting as many as 250 developers had been let go, although EA has since said this number was “too high”.

The publisher also announced it would be terminating Facebook titles The Sims Social, Pet Society and SimCity Social as a result of what it called a large decline in player activity.

This resulted in a number of redundancies at EA Playfish, while Playfish CEO Kristian Segerstrale told Develop that studio had been split “into multiple EA mobile, Maxis and sports studios plus the core of global digital publishing”.

It was also later revealed by MCV India that EA’s India office in Hyderabad had been hit by around 50 layoffs.