EA: ‘There are no layoffs as such’

Electronic Arts has denied rumours that the company is set to axe as many as 1000 jobs.

“There are no lay-offs as such, we always have projects growing and morphing,” a statement issued to Develop read.

Cryptically, the company aded that “at any given time there are new people coming in and others leaving”.

the spokesperson went on to state that EA “is growing and hiring, building teams to support the growing demand for digital games and services”.

An unverified report earlier claimed that EA is set to downsize its workforce by as many as 1000 people.

Tech and business website Startup Grind, whose author claims to have worked at EA several years ago, has not clarified whether it had engaged with Electronic Arts before publication.

“I’ve confirmed from multiple sources within Electronic Arts that the company is planning to layoff 500-1,000 people as soon as this week,” the news article read.

Such a corporate downsizing initiative would theoretically represent between five and ten per cent of the company’s total workforce.

“The layoffs were originally set for last Monday (April 9th), but they were pushed back and we’ve confirmed they’re coming very soon,” the report added.

The report suggests that The Old Republic, an MMO which has represented one of EA’s biggest financial gambles in the past five years, is “not matching lofty internal expectations”.

In February, EA said that more than one million people were playing The Old Republic each day, while about 2 million copies of the game were purchased.

The allegations of layoffs come ahead of EA celebrating sales of Mass Effect 3, which has surpassed one million purchases in the US alone.