Electronic Arts South Africa reshuffles

·6 Jun 2013

Electronic Arts South Africa has responded to the news surrounding organisational restructuring taking place in a number of EA territories, and elaborated on the future of the South African division.

In late May, Electronic Arts’ UK head office addressed rumours that emerged regarding a possible closure of its South African division, explaining that organisational restructuring was taking place.

“In recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile,” EA international told number one South African gaming site, MyGaming.

“This has led to some difficult decisions to reduce the workforce in some locations. We are extremely grateful for the contributions made by each of our employees – those that are leaving EA will be missed by their colleagues and friends.”

“These are hard but essential changes as we focus on delivering great games and showing players around the world why to spend their time with us,” EA said.

EA SA manages marketing, sales, distribution, support, and manufacture of EA Games in South Africa.

Speaking with EA SA’s Ralph Spinks and Grant Oliver, MyGaming was told that, while the physical offices of EA SA will be closing down, the presence and operations of EA in South Africa will remain unchanged.

“We will still assure that gamers get the quality titles and service that they deserve,” said Oliver.

While Spinks and Oliver stopped short of confirming there were job losses at EA SA, they did confirm they remained with EA SA while some staff had been “reshuffled”.

It was revealed that Apex Interactive, who distributes titles from Atari, Koch Media, 505 Games and others in South Africa, will now handle the distribution of future EA games.

The local manufacturing of discs will remain intact, and EA SA assured that everything would run as normal.