Electronic Arts (EA) laid off over 200 quality assurance (QA) testers from its headquarters in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Tuesday, Feb. 28. These employees were primarily responsible for testing the company's upcoming free-to-play battle royale game, Apex Legends.
Based on the statements of three of Kotaku's anonymous sources, the layoffs were carried out via a last-minute Zoom call. EA acknowledged the layoffs as part of their ongoing worldwide plan to "distribute" its Apex Legends testing staff.
Abrupt Layoffs
QA testers' contracting company Magnit Global called a last-minute, compulsory Zoom conference and asked that all attendees connect from their own smartphones or computers at 8:00 AM CT. All of the QA staff at the Baton Rouge office were reportedly fired after that.
Apparently, not only the laid-off workers but even the permanent managers were caught off guard by this news. The affected employees were only permitted to get their items from the workplace under the close watch of security personnel.
As per the insiders, they will be given 60 days of severance pay, although it is unlikely to be enough to cover the duration of most employees' contracts.
One former employee took to Twitter and wrote, "EA just fired its entire Baton Rouge studio, which is essentially their entire Apex Legends QA staff." A separate tweet stated, "They've been slowly hiring at studios elsewhere but none of those people have any experience with the title."
They've been slowly hiring at studios elsewhere but none of those people have any experience with the title.
— Ben (@TopMarx420) February 28, 2023
The QA Team
Before Apex Legends' 2019 surprise release, the Baton Rouge office offered QA assistance for a wide variety of EA-published games.
Current and former testers in Baton Rouge are concerned that the quality of testing would suffer due to the sudden change in operations since the team has been developing its expertise in testing for many years.
The Apex Legends mobile spin-off and an unreleased Battlefield mobile game were both shelved by EA a month prior to these layoffs.
Part of Global Strategy
An EA representative told Kotaku that teams in several locations would conduct testing for Apex Legends. And despite the layoffs, they acknowledged that testing games is a vital component of creating the greatest experiences for the users.
"As part of our ongoing global strategy, we are expanding the distribution of our Apex Legends testing team and ending testing execution that's been concentrated in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, impacting services provided by our third-party provider," said the representative.
"Our global team, inclusive of remote playtesters across the U.S., enables us to increase the hours per week we're able to test and optimize the game and reflects a commitment to understand and better serve our growing community around the world."
