Shortly after their acquisition of Playfish, Electronic Arts is set to streamline operations, sacking 1,500 employees from different levels, and canning 12 unannounced projects. Speaking in an investor conference call, chief financial officer John Brown gave out the details.

Out of the 1,500 employees to get the axe, 900 are positions in game development, 500 in publishing, and 100 for corporate level. Letting them go will save the company US$ 100 million annually. Laying off employees and closing facilities is never pleasant," said EA CEO John Riccitiello. "We have a lot of compassion for those impacted but these cuts are essential for transforming our company."

It was not clear if teams will remain intact, but Black Box, Redwood Shores, Tiburon and Mythic are all believed to be affected by the layoffs. "We think the cuts we have made are very, very aggressive. "We've cut teams, we've cut corporate, we've cut overhead, we've cut publishing but not to the point of hampering ourselves," Riccitiello said.

Apart from letting a lot of people go, EA was also forced to cancel 12 of its unannounced projects. These projects are the smaller, less profitable games. "So it is really, in a way, if you could array our title slate up knowing what we did about what we would have otherwise brought to market, we cut the bottom third of it."

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