EA forms new division to house Bioware, Maxis, and more

EA’s making some organizational changes to how it organizes its myriad game studios. In a blog post today, EA CEO Andrew Wilson announced the formation of EA Worldwide Studios, a single organization meant to “bring together [EA’s] top creative talent in all of our great studios to work on EA’s powerful brand portfolio and new IP.”

According to Wilson’s post, this new division (which encompasses all of EA's various studios, including Bioware, EA Mobile, and Maxis) will be led by EA exec Patrick Söderlund. Samantha Ryan, who formerly ran Maxis and EA Mobile, will now report to Söderlund and also help lead Bioware alongside general manager Aaryn Flynn. 

Wilson also writes that the team behind EA’s Frostbite Engine has joined the company’s technology organization, implying that the company intends to continue to make it a central pillar for game development within the company. 

A few months ago, Söderlund mentioned that the Frostbite team was researching means of using the proprietary engine to procedurally generate levels so that game artists and designers could faster iterate on their design instead of building them up from scratch. The Frostbite team's move within the technology group may be part of EA's plans for the engine that Söderlund discussed at the time. 

There is some question at this point as to whether this studio consolidation is just an executive shuffle or if it will impact jobs among the various studios. An Endgadget report says that EA is apparently not laying anyone off as part of this reorganization, but we’ve reached out to an EA representative to confirm this statement. 

EA did confirm with Endgadget that both PopCap and EA Sports are not “negatively” affected by this move. 

If you or someone you know has been affected by this restructuring, you can email Gamasutra to tell your story confidentially.

Update: An EA representative has confirmed to Gamasutra that no job cuts are expected as part of this reorganization .They went on to clarify that "EA Worldwide Studios, which builds on our previous EA Studios organization, is now the group that includes all of EA’s development studios."