December 11th, 2008 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | 3 Comments »
EA's Tim Harrison has decided to leave the company. According to various sources, he will not be leaving the industry. He's expected to pop-up at some competitor of EA Mobile.
EA has announced a lot of staff changes in October. The total headcount would be reduced by about 6%. Another interesting detail is that Kathy Vrabeck left early last month. She was leading the EA Casual unit which houses EA Mobile.
Next to the personnel changes, EA has also announced that the revenues of this quarter and the whole fiscal 2009 will be behind on expectations. The product portfolio for 2010 will be slimmed down as a response.
"While we saw significant improvement in the overall quality of our key products this year, we are disappointed that our holiday slate is not meeting our sales expectations," said John Riccitiello, Chief Executive Officer. "Given this performance and the uncertain economic environment, we are taking steps to reduce our cost structure and improve the profitability of our business."
Mr. Riccitiello added, "While we are cutting costs, we remain committed to investing in great game quality, in new properties and in our direct-to-consumer initiatives. We will be launching several new titles and online games in fiscal 2010."
& of course they are not the only ones slashing staff…Glu has been a bit quiet but we know they are losing staff all over Europe. What about Connect 2 Media ? Haven’t heard anything about HOM for ages either. I did hear that Connect 2 Media Lost O2 and Orange accounts in the UK and that the HOM line up for next year is slim, not sure what else they have lost or are losing. Also that they (C2M) are trimming peoples wages by 20% and some of the senior staff have been contacting head hunters. Seems Glu, EA, HOM/Connect2Media are all licking their wounds but it is the VC funded ones that could be really in trouble here as the VC’s turn off the taps suddenly. EA will of course continue to dominate the market with Game Loft.
EA is bleeding and its just the beginning. EAmobile is not making the money in the mobile sector. EA is having real problems in the pc/console sector. EA has the same problem than the car industry in the US. They have noone with “spirit” leading the units. When will they stop to venture the mobile unit?
Close to noone ever had to make money. Now from one day to another everyone has to focus on making profit. But thats a hard lesson for everyone.
@newscorp
dont forget iplay. Perhaps loki should make a death list again
EA mobile’s revenues come from Tetris… and that’s about it.
The bigger and older studios in the EA mobile family will see serious cuts in their workforce – mainly because tools and processes will be shipped to already existing “offshore” facilities.