Land under at EA: Employee morale at rock bottom due to AI pressure
There is a lot of rumblings at the gaming company Electronic Arts (EA). Various company employees are said to be complaining about significant changes because management is exerting great pressure to force the widespread use of artificial intelligence.
Layoffs and AI use
EA has long been controversial as a game manufacturer because the company repeatedly tries to achieve savings with drastic measures. The game studio BioWare was recently closed and a new game in the successful Mass Effect series was simply abandoned. According to a report, the motivation of many employees has now reached a low point for other reasons. As Vertical News Citing sources in the workforce in various areas at EA, the work morale at the company is currently suffering massively because the developers now have to manage the same processes with significantly fewer colleagues. At the same time, managers should exert strong pressure regarding the use of AI technologies.
Management from Claude & Co more than enthusiastic
Although EA has not yet explicitly enforced the use of AI in game development, the sources claim that superiors are constantly instilling in their subordinates that AI is the future and must be used. Despite the concerns expressed by employees, senior management in particular are “very enthusiastic about Claude and the possibilities of AI,” it goes on to say. It is now becoming much more difficult for developers at EA not to use the AI services introduced by management. Claude Code and other tools are now used by many software developers, partly because they often automate repetitive processes, even if the quality of the code can suffer under certain circumstances.
Above all, the AI tools enable the rapid implementation of certain tasks that would otherwise only require a lot of personnel and time, provided you are prepared to accept the costs. Electronic Arts had already made it clear in 2024 that it wanted to rely fully on artificial intelligence in game development. Some other game manufacturers are also using AI on a massive scale. Epic boss Tim Sweeney relies fully on the technology to further develop games like Fortnite and hardly makes a secret about it. In most cases, the CEOs of the gaming industry do not accept criticism of the strategy.
