Electronic Arts announced a major restructuring that saw it rename its long-running EA Games division into EA Entertainment, in addition to introducing several other changes to its corporate composition. This development coincides with the publisher's newly announced decision to delay Immortals of Aveum.
Founded in 1982 by one of Apple's first 50 employees, Trip Hawkins, Electronic Arts established the EA Games brand in 1999 as an all-encompassing moniker of its publishing division. This makes it the company's second-oldest in-house label after EA Sports, which started in 1991. That particular division just went through a somewhat turbulent 12-month period that saw EA Sports lose its FIFA license and put out a poorly-reviewed Madden NFL 23.
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In a June 20 announcement, EA CEO Andrew Wilson revealed that the company underwent a major reshuffle by organizing all of its studios into EA Sports and EA Entertainment, formerly EA Games. The industry veteran labeled the move as an "evolution" of EA which will allow its many divisions to seize "more creative ownership and financial accountability" over their projects, all with the goal of improving efficiency. The restructuring should hence boost the company's growth prospects and ensure "long-term value" for both its employees and players alike, Wilson concluded.
EA Chief Operating Officer Laura Miele was appointed as the head of EA Entertainment, while Executive Vice President Cam Weber will continue to lead EA Sports in an expanded role after the reshuffle saw him emerge as the division's president. One of his first big challenges will be to build out a new brand of soccer games meant to replace EA's FIFA franchise. Meanwhile, Miele will be looking to grow the EA Entertainment label, whose very name implies that the conglomerate has growing ambitions beyond the video game industry. This was most recently underlined by a revelation that EA is working on a system to automatically pair popular streamers with sponsors.
The announcement of the reshuffling mentioned no particular changes to the company's overall content strategy. With EA stressing the importance of single-player games as late as last year, this corporate restructuring presumably won't inhibit its willingness to finance projects such as Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and the Dead Space remake moving forward.
The move also won't affect individual studio leadership at EA's many subsidiaries such as BioWare, Codemasters, Motive, and Respawn Entertainment. EA's stock fell 1.75 points in the run-up to today's announcement which came at the tail end of NASDAQ's business hours. In other words, the investors' thoughts on this restructuring will only become apparent once the market re-opens on June 21.
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Source: EA