After laying off 1,500 employees yesterday, the company now slashed its projected game releases in 2010 down to “somewhere in the high 30s”. While this still sounds like a pretty solid amount of games, consider this: In this now-ending fiscal year, EA has released upwards of 60 games. In regards to if this was going to be a continuing trend, EA CEO John Riccitiello had this to say:
EA is a massive company to be cutting back production by 50% with their selective publishing. Massive changes are afoot as EA aims to restructure themselves to become a more profitable company; though this likely puts many production companies in danger, as the drastic reduction may spell disaster for several games which may have otherwise had sequels - Riccitiello worded it rather bluntly:
This most definitely means games that were still enjoyable - if not as profitable - may have to attempt to search elsewhere for a publisher. John Riccitiello himself stated that the company would not be taking on “Risky IPs during these tough economic times”. So, for example, EA confirmed a month ago that a small team was working on Mirror’s Edge 2, which was planned to be turned into a trilogy. Likely, this is one of those games that wasn’t nearly as profitable for EA, and after recent actions, it’s hard to see them pumping Mirror’s Edge out as a trilogy.
What are your thoughts on the release cutbacks by EA Studios? Are you worried about any game studios that might be harmed by this? Do you think it’s a good idea to cut back their carried IPs after acquiring them?
Source: MCVuk
