Reports: Electronic Arts Lays Off Employees In 'Seasonal Roll-offs'

Reports point to layoffs for 100 or more EA employees from around the company -- which it says are part of seasonal staffing adjustments following the busy holiday production cycle. ShackNews cites an unnamed source in reporting that "as many as 100 employees" from Vancouver's EA Canada and EA Black Box were let go earlier today. A tweet from 3D Realms' George Broussard places the toll at EA Canada alone at over 100 employees. The reported layoffs are said to affect teams that worked on games including Skate 3, EA Sports Active and NBA Elite 11. 1UP sources report Elite is being transfered to development at EA Tiburon, after the game was recently delayed to 2011 over "concerns about gameplay polish." This latest round of layoffs follows an annual pattern at Electronic Arts of paring down staffing numbers after the bulk of development for the packed holiday release season is done. The publisher let go of 600 employees in October of 2008 and confirmed lay offs for 1,500 last November. "As you know, seasonal roll-offs that follow game launches are common and vital to maintaining a healthy business," EA spokesperson Jeff Brown told Joystiq in a statement. "Because so many of our games ship in the holiday quarter, the team size adjustments tend to follow in the same timeframe. However, EA is growing and several of our studios are looking to hire talented people."