EA recently released the results for their second quarter of the financial year (July-September) and the numbers were not encouraging. Losses amounted to $391 million, a 26 per cent increase over the same period last year. These results have brought on even more downsizing plans with a total of 1500 employees being laid off.
The first studios mentioned to be affected include EA Black Box in Vancouver (Skate series), EA Tiburon (Madden NFL, EA Sports MMA), and Mythic Entertainment (Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning). There were also reports of cuts in the quality assurance department. Now there are also reports steaming from Kotaku that the Command & Conquer team at EA Los Angeles, Pandemic Studios (Mercenaries, The Saboteur), and Maxis (Spore, The Sims) are among the most heavily affected. Rupture Studios, who focus on social network games are also said to be affected (which sounds reasonable given EA's purchase of Playfish).
The reports on Kotaku, says that almost the entire Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight team has learned that they will loose their jobs upon completing the project. What this means to the future of the Command & Conquer series we can only speculate on, but the moves EA are making are meant to cut away sections of the company who haven't contributed enough when the cost of keeping them is compared to the money their products have brought in. Simple economics in other words.