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EA Fires Over 200 Apex Legends QA Testers in Unscheduled Zoom Call

• Jacob Chambers
• March 1st, 2023

In a surprise Zoom call, EA fired over 200 quality assurance testers. Apex Legends, developed by Respawn Entertainment, was the main focus of the affected employees at Electronic Arts’ Baton Rouge, Louisiana office.

According to Kotaku, contract testers were informed of their immediate termination in an unscheduled Zoom meeting at 8 am on Tuesday. Some laid-off testers had worked overnight.

Current and former testers tweeted the news.

EA just fired its entire Baton Rouge studio, which is essentially their entire Apex Legends QA staff.

— Ben (@TopMarx420) February 28, 2023

EA did not comment on the layoffs, but a spokesperson told Kotaku via email that “testing games is an integral part of delivering the best experiences for our players” and that “as part of our ongoing global strategy, we are expanding the distribution of our Apex Legends testing team and ending testing execution that’s been concentrated in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, impacting services provided by our third-party provider.” Our global team, which includes remote playtesters from the United States, enables us to test and optimize the game for more hours per week, as well as better understand and serve our growing global community.”

Even full-time managers and supervisors were surprised by this bad news, which came after Apex Legends’ 16th season of support, Revelry.Sources reported 60 days’ severance for affected contractors.

How did EA deliver this news?