A global downsizing move by Electronics Arts Inc. (Nasdaq:EA) has hit Vancouver with the reported closure of two local EA studios.
In a four-sentence announcement posted on its website, EA Thursday announced plans to "reduce the workforce in some locations," but gave no details of how many jobs would be lost, or where.
However, ousted EA employees were more descriptive. "PopCap Vancouver, makers of Hidden Object games, officially closed. Outta work again," one employee tweeted.
"So Quicklime studio, where I work within EA, has been shut down," tweeted another EA employee. "All employees have been laid off."
A laid-off PopCap employee told Business in Vancouver via Twitter this morning that the closure of PopCap alone amounted to about 40 layoffs – this doesn't include Quicklime layoffs.
Word of the layoffs began to be tweeted right around the time local game industry executives were discussing some of the challenges their industry faces with NDP candidate Matt Toner, who runs his own studio, Zeros 2 Heros Media Inc.
Console game development tends to be cyclical, so layoffs are not unusual. But the ones now occurring in EA appear part of a bigger restructuring. Layoffs have also taken place in EA's Montreal studios, where around 170 staff were laid off earlier this month.
"In recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile," the console game giant announced.
"It's not like a tweak, like Slant Six Games did a few weeks ago," Toner told Business in Vancouver. "It sounds like it's a compete shutdown, which is worse, because once you close the plant, you don't resize."
It has been reported that only the PopCap studio in Vancouver is shutting down, whereas one in Seattle isn't – something Toner reads as another sign that Vancouver is losing its competitive edge in keeping game developers here.
The game industry is going through a paradigm shift, driven in no small part by the massive growth of free-to-play games for mobile and social media, which can be made by small studios.
"What's happening now is we're seeing a lot of the 30-person studios," said Richard Smith, director for Centre for Digital Media.
However, those smaller studios depend on the big ones, such as EA. EA's group of Burnaby studios, which typically employs well over 1,000 people, has been described as the "mothership" of Vancouver gaming sector.
"They help to generate talent, interest in our industry and they bolster our profile," Lance Davis, CFO for Slant Six and director for DigiBC, recently told Business in Vancouver. "There's kind of a symbiotic relationship between the large studios and the indies."
