Opiate said:
If you're only making money when every team is suceeding, then you've built your company wrong.
I agree, but remember that EA has 15 studios or so who have 2-3 teams each. The bulk of EA's released products do quite well, and there are very few utter bombs. Their have an enormous roster of bankable IP in pretty much every genre.
The problem with the company is fat. EA repeatedly tells everyone this and despite a number of restructurings that have helped streamline stuff, there's still a ton of fat. I identified a number of full studios that I feel like either will or probably ought to be axed if EA wants to be profitable. Riccitiello has identified those studios too, judging from the rumours and the fact that it's pretty likely the OP is actually true.
Put it this way; Let's say a studio has two 150 person teams who can each be expected to create a game every two years (and presumably you alternate years, so the studio releases one title per year). To be profitable, a game needs to cover negative costs, marketing, and provide ROI. Negative costs are expenses for 300 people for one year; not 150.
Year 1: Team A releases game.
Year 2: Team B game cancelled, starts new game. (No income this year, functionally)
Year 3: Team A releases game, underperforms.
Year 4: Team B releases game
Year 5: Team A game cancelled, starts new game.
Now multiply this kind of pattern across every studio in the company.
Like I said, there are elements of the company who release products regularly and seem to always provide ROI (EA Sports as a division, actually) and there are elements of the company that are lean and have relatively fixed, reliable costs (EA Partners, for example), but there's also a ton of fat.
Pandemic has a lot of talent, but the output this gen just hasn't been there. Three profitable licences lost (including one where the game was pushed out half-baked and bombed and one where the game was near-finished and cancelled at that stage), Destroy All Humans declining as an IP and being owned by another publisher anyway... that leaves Mercs 2 which underperformed and The Saboteur which is about to and probably would even if EA did put their muscle behind it.
I feel like EA's departmental structure is pretty good at this point. My only problem is that pretty much every studio has teams who aren't being utilized effectively (whether a management issue or a development issues, I have no idea) and some studios have basically nothing to offer at all right now.