EA.com decimated
Over two hundred people to be laid off from loss-making online venture
Electronic Arts has announced that it will be sacking up to 250 staff from its loss making EA.com division, about a third of the online group's employees. The deep cuts are being made in a desperate attempt to reach the goal of making EA.com profitable by the end of their 2003 financial year, as the company's latest results are expected to show another big loss from EA.com when they are released on Thursday. So far the venture has been losing money hand over fist, with Majestic proving to be a relative flop and key titles such as Earth & Beyond and The Sims Online taking longer to complete than anticipated. CFO Stan McKee insists that "we solidly believe in the business", while admitting that "the challenge is simply getting the products done". Meanwhile Electronic Arts president John Riccitiello stated the obvious in an internal memo leaked to Reuters, telling staff that "we need to focus on the projects we believe have the greatest revenue potential". It remains to be seen which projects they think have lesser revenue potential and what this will mean for their future, but EA haven't been afraid of cancelling big projects such as Ultima Online 2 in the past...