Thought some of you might find this interesting.
Kotaku: EA Loses 1 Million

While you'd think this would make the EA execs stop and think, I doubt they'll figure out what they've been doing wrong to achieve such a poor result. The EA way of thinking seems to be that if screwing over your customers earns you less money than you expected, the solution must be to screw them over even harder. (No, I'm not a fan of EA).

As usual with these things, it will be the lowest paid members of the various slimy tentacles of EA that will most likely be cut, with the scum at the top remaining largely undisturbed.
(I am also not a fan of EA)

Actually this seems more like a case of creative accounting. They're counting all outstanding bills now, so that they can show a bad figure, so they can justify the layoffs. And if possible also get a bit of money from the government. Hell, I'd do the same. Right now layoffs are easier to do than ever before.

Well, while i am by no means a fan of EA.....the enormous cut to their workforce certainly isn't a good thing for those who were fired, and it's a sign for rough times for the gaming industry in general.
Think about it: if a colossus like EA had to cut loose such a great portion of their employees, what chance do smaller developers have?
I see a bad moon rising.....

From one standpoint: a much better chance than they had before, when EA was totally dominating the market. Actually, let's not bullshit ourselves here. Even after this maneuver, EA will still dominate the market. But it might make enough of a vacuum that a few actually creative and innovative games may squeeze through the otherwise lowest-common-denominator-dominated screening process that most publishers have. Or perhaps the reduced number of EA titles may even encourage a few smaller developers to try and publish a game themselves.

In the coming month there will definitely be a vacuum as EA has already announced that they will hold back major releases until the market recovers.

Oh man, they're delaying Dragon Age. I'm glad I don't mod that particular forum on the BioWare boards.

I don't think that will be the case here.
To develop a game you need time, people and most of all money. Unless we're speaking about one of those indie games with developing team composed only of 2 people, every game needs a good chunk of money to get started, moreso if you're a small-medium developer who cannot count on the funds of EA or the trust EA has among banks to get loans.
I don't know, maybe i'm being a little too much pessimistic here....mabybe you're right after all :) I certainly hope you are.

Well its not like the giant global financial crisis has anything to do with it, it's all PIRATES!

I agree (both on the accounting part and the laying off of employees).
Plus now it is sort of acceptable that companies are loosing money although the games industry has always been in terms of sales somewhat economic-recession resistant.
Furthermore next fiscal year they can show the shareholders an enormous increase in revenues, thus increasing their value.

not really ea have a bad time (they more than desrvere it please insert drm hate rant here)
as they were going to release a harry potter game of the movie whitch now has to be moved so they not made any money on it lol plus i read some where that some studio smegged up a game for the the dark knight
found confirm of the dark knight smeg up http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22665/1092/

YAR!!!

Haha, you made my day man :D

Seriously, it's really more or less US-only. The rest of the world has a bit of trouble because the stock market, trading in natural resources and currencies has gone a bit crazy (and of course that we can't really export anything to the US anymore), but there are no real homemade problems, just the effects of the American recession. Germans still have plenty of money in the bank, we just need a reason to spend it. For Europeans, the effect of this "global recession" is mostly psychological.