Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, March 30 (Xinhua)-- Electronic Arts (EA) announced on Wednesday that it will cut about 6% of its jobs and reduce office space.

EA, the first major video game publisher to announce layoffs, has the familiar "FIFA" football game series and the "Sims" series.

As of the end of March last year, EA had about 12900 employees and the costs associated with the restructuring are expected to be between $170 million and $200m (CTOnews.com Note: currently about Rmb1.17 billion-1.376 billion). At 6 per cent, EA will cut about 774 jobs.

"with increasing emphasis on our portfolio, we are abandoning projects that do not contribute to the company's strategy, reviewing our real estate and restructuring some of our teams," Andrew Wilson, chief executive of EA, said in a blog post.

Wilson said EA will provide employees with the opportunity to transfer to other projects and, if not, severance pay and perks.

Video game sales so far this year have been flat, with spending on cross-platform video game content down 2 per cent, according to analytics firm Circana. EA lowered its annual bookings forecast in January after delaying the release of a game based on Star Wars IP.

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