EA abruptly lays off over 200 Apex Legends game testers

Electronic Arts reportedly lays off 200 quality assurance testers at its Baton Rouge, Louisiana office over an unscheduled zoom call meeting on February 28, 2023, at around 8 AM CT (7:30 PM IST). The employees primarily worked for EA’s battle royale game, Apex Legends. Those who are laid off will reportedly receive 60 days of severance pay.

EA lays off over 200 QA testers over a zoom call

Over 200 quality assurance testers, who predominantly worked on Apex Legends were laid off during an unscheduled zoom call out of the blues, according to Kotaku.

Employees who have been laid off will receive a severance pay of 60 days, which is less than the length of many of their contracts. They were also informed that they may only take their personal belongings from the office under the supervision of security.

A Twitter user TopMarx420 wrote in a tweet, “EA just fired its entire Baton Rouge studio, which is essentially their entire Apex Legends QA staff.” The user also stated that EA has been slowly hiring at studios elsewhere but none of those people have any experience with the title.

A spokesperson from EA wrote in an email to Kotaku, “Testing games is an integral part of delivering the best experiences for our players. 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.”

 

 

Further, they wrote, “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.”

A month ago, EA also canceled the development of Apex Legends Mobile and Battlefield Mobile, along with the closure of the developer Industrial Toys, which was working on the latter game.