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In order to reduce losses reaching $310 million, a 63% increase over last year's $195 million, Electronic Arts has decided to lay off 600 employees in a "global reduction" from which it hopes to gain pre-tax savings of $50 million. Additionally, the company plans to make a reduction in hiring and close currently open positions. With all these money-saving efforts from the publisher, one might get the impression that revenues are down, but in fact, they're not. Overall revenues rose to $864 million, a 33% increase over last year's $650 million. Although EA CEO John Riccitiello partly blames a "slow down at retail in October" for the changes, they're also probably due to the $620 million purchase of Pandemic and Bioware that the company made last year. Because of the acquisitions, the company posted a loss of $454 million on the year.

Speaking to Gamasutra, EA Spokesperson Mariam Sughayer explains these layoffs are "a global reduction" and that they're "not just focused on one studio." Yet, Gamasutra has updated the article since its original posting and have noted that their "sources" indicate Electronic Arts Los Angeles and Pandemic are being affected more than others. Since Riccitiello said some of the company's recent releases would be "sequelable," as noted by Kotaku, reducing the staff of the 1.9 million-selling Mercenaries 2: World in Flames developer Pandemic seems to contradict the CEO's desires.

Still, Riccitiello noted his optimism saying how the company is "bullish" on the ever-growing game industry. Sadly, he failed to indicate whether or not the 600 people who will now be receiving severance packages could eventually get jobs at EA again. On the bright side, maybe some former employees will now find the time to develop a physics-based gooey puzzle game with a soundtrack Danny Elfman would be proud of or a social gaming website where independent developers can earn money from the games they submit. Good luck, everyone.