‘Morale has been terrible’ at EA, workers claim, saying that AI mandates and mismanagement have left the company ‘a cold dead place that’s slowly decaying as leadership pilfers every last cent’
Employee morale at Electronic Arts has reached an all-time low, according to anonymous sources speaking to Vertical Slice. The downturn follows EA’s recent closure of BioWare, a studio that experienced years of turbulent development and strategic missteps.
The decline at BioWare stemmed from conflicting corporate mandates. The studio initially developed games around a live-service model that ultimately failed to gain traction, most notably Anthem. When leadership reversed course, demanding a pivot away from live-service development, BioWare entered a chaotic reorganization cycle to develop Veilguard.
Anonymous EA employees cited a disconnect between company messaging and reality. Leadership promoted the philosophy of “do less, better,” yet workers described experiencing the same workload with significantly fewer team members. Sources characterized the workplace as increasingly dysfunctional, with one describing it as “a cold dead place that’s slowly decaying as leadership pilfers every last cent.”
The situation reflects broader structural problems within EA’s management. One account summarized the corporate dynamic bluntly: “EA executives cannot fail, only be failed”—suggesting leadership avoids accountability while blame shifts to employees and studios. This dynamic appears to have fostered a toxic environment where strategic failures result in layoffs rather than leadership changes.