EA lays off staff across Battlefield-related studios in 'alignment' move as game bleeds players — billions in revenue and record sales figures not enough to save staff from the axe

Source: Tom’s Hardware

Image credit: Electronic Arts

Layoffs

Electronic Arts is cutting an undetermined number of jobs across studios tied to the Battlefield franchise, including key developer DICE as well as Criterion, Ripple Effect, and Motive.

Financials

• At $70 per copy, the first‑three‑day sales of 7 million units translate to roughly $1.4 billion in revenue (not accounting for discounts or regional pricing).
• EA’s earnings from DLC typically range from 60 % to 70 % of base‑game revenue, so a rough estimate puts total revenue for Battlefield 6 around $4 billion.
• The company reportedly spent $400 million on development alone. When marketing costs are added—often comparable to development spend—total outlay may have approached $800 million.

Player Count and Performance

• EA had ambitious goals of reaching 100 million players over an unspecified period.
• Despite a strong launch (7 million copies sold in three days), Steam’s peak concurrent player count was about 747,000, and the game lost over 90 % of its players within six months, now ranking around #34 on Steam’s player‑count charts.
• The free‑to‑play battle‑royale mode RedSec has not significantly converted free players to paying customers.

Reception and Criticism

• Early beta feedback praised gunplay, movement, destructible environments, and technical performance.
• Critics noted the shift toward smaller maps, short time‑to‑kill, and fast‑paced movement, which felt more akin to the Call of Duty formula than traditional Battlefield design.
• The lack of large maps and vehicle‑centric gameplay—core to the series—disappointed many veterans.
• Post‑launch updates introduced RedSec, season passes, skins, and microtransactions, but patches often added new issues, particularly with netcode and vehicle balance.
• The scarcity of new, sizable maps and the prevalence of “meat‑grinder” combat led to player fatigue, reflected in declining daily player counts across platforms (EA App, Epic, PlayStation, Xbox).