EA is pushing its developers back into the office and phasing out its remote work policies, IGN reports.
Electronic Arts chief executive officer Andrew Wilson told employees in an email that hybrid work will now mean at least three days in the office, and that the company would not be hiring for any more locally remote roles.
In a separate email, EA Entertainment president Laura Miele clarified that these changes will not take effect immediately and that employees currently working remotely who are being asked back into the office will have a minimum of 12 weeks' notice to make the transition.
EA is also introducing a new 30-mile/48km radius around its offices, which will set the ground rules for what work model employees will fall under. If you live within that radius and currently work remotely, you'll transition to the newly defined hybrid model of three days a week in the office.
If you live outside of that radius, you'll continue to work as you are until EA designates that you have to transition either to a hybrid or an on-site model, the latter meaning you'd have to be in the office five days a week.
A final key change with this push back to in office work is that all future remote work hires and any exemptions to the hybrid or on-site models as they are now defined will have to go through the approval of EA's top executives, which means it'll be up to EA Entertainment president Laura Miele or Andrew Wilson to approve an employee's remote work request.
In Wilson's email, IGN reports he said that working in an office allows for "a kinetic energy that fuels creativity, innovation, and connection, often resulting in unexpected breakthroughs that lead to incredible experiences for our players."
That all sounds wonderful, but game studios proved, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, that remote work models can be successful for teams. The pandemic proved even further that the video game industry's biggest studios could be successful with remote work models. It's not like anything Wilson describes is exclusive to working in an office.
Unsurprisingly, EA employees are not all too happy with the push, and some who anonymously spoke to IGN expressed concerns around whether they'd be able to move closer to the office in the transition period, and how needing to return to the office, even just three days a week, means a complete uprooting of their lives.
These new changes will undoubtedly cause talented developers who, for their own valid reasons, can't make it into an EA office three times a week to leave the company. It's a way of making cuts that doesn't have to involve EA saying they are laying people off, and without having to pay severance to those who are forced to leave due to these changes. EA's balance sheet might be better off in the eyes of Wilson and the company's bean counters, but that gain does not offset the loss of key talent.
Recently, EA laid off 300-400 developers, 100 of them from Respawn, and canceled another project it was incubating, which was reportedly an extraction shooter set in the world of Titanfall.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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