Three former playtesters told a gaming website how an entire team of 200 people was laid off in a single Zoom call by Electronic Arts (EA).
Apex Legends is a well-known shooter that enjoys great popularity worldwide. For Electronic Arts, it has been the bright spot in financial reports among shooters in recent years, after the MMO shooter Anthem was discontinued early, Star Wars: Battlefront was phased out, and Battlefield was struggling.
However, over 200 QA testers (“Quality Assurance”) at Electronic Arts were reportedly unexpectedly fired without warning in a Zoom call. The team worked in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Three former employees told the gaming website Kotaku exactly what happened and what transpired after the layoffs.
Here you can see a trailer for Apex Legends:
The entire QA team in Baton Rouge has been laid off
What do the employees say? Three employees told Kotaku about how the layoff unfolded. They wish to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to speak with the press.
On Tuesday, February 28, 2023, the QA testers were invited to an unscheduled meeting with Magnit Global, their contracting agency, via Zoom. They were advised to join from their personal phone or PC.
Then the entire QA team was laid off. The team there was responsible for quality assurance for different EA games, but had been involved with the shooter Apex Legends since its launch in 2019.
Allegedly, the news came as a surprise not only to the laid-off employees but also to the full-time supervisors, who reportedly had not received any information in advance.
The laid-off employees were allowed to take their personal belongings from the offices, but only under supervision of security, and are reportedly receiving a financial severance for 60 days.
The layoffs cannot be due to the success of the shooter: Recently, Apex Legends even broke a record on Steam.
What does EA say about this? A spokesperson for the game publisher replied to Kotaku via email as follows:
Testing games is an essential part of providing our players with the best experience. As part of our ongoing global strategy, we are expanding the distribution of our Apex Legends testing team and ending the testing operation that has previously been concentrated in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which affects the services provided by our third-party vendor.
Our global team, which also includes remote testers in the USA, enables us to increase the number of hours per week that we can test and optimize the game, and reflects our commitment to understanding and better serving our growing community worldwide.
via Kotaku
The layoffs seem to be due to a broader distribution of playtests to a global team, allowing EA to create increased testing capacity. Additionally, this is meant to better tailor game content for players outside the USA.
About a month ago, there were already significant changes at EA – it was announced that Apex Legends Mobile would be discontinued: Electronic Arts has 4 bad news regarding games – Losing 3 billion $ in value on the stock market in one day
