EA Reorganizes Into Four Labels

Reuters is reporting that the mega-publisher EA will soon be reorganized into four separate labels underneath the company's umbrella. The four groups will be known as EA Games, EA Sports, EA Casual Entertainment, and a label simply called 'The Sims'. All four organizations will be supported by two additional EA groups, which will handle publishing and 'development services'. "The changes, based on the success of a pilot program that placed games based on "The Sims" franchise into their own unit, mean it will require fewer executives to sign off on new games or to approve launching an existing game on a different platform or in a different regions. "We ran an organizational experiment and it was pretty damn successful. The Sims grew aggressively," Frank Gibeau, head of the new EA Games unit said."

Comments

The Sims as a distinct unit?

[Whuffo]

Maybe I'm a little cynical, but it seems that when corporate reorganizations end up with one specific product split out from the rest, it means that product is about played out and the new structure will make it much easier to kill that product off. Much tidier, too - Sims, Inc. goes out of business and there's no problems with laid off workers, etc. to deal with.

EA has had enough "employee problems" over the years so it's entirely possible that they could see this as their golden opportunity to trim the payroll with almost no downside.

My bet: EA Sims will be history in less than a year. Product being produced today will be in the discount software bin in 3 months...