You’ll remember way back in early May we broke the news that EA was closing down it’s local offices and palming off the local distribution to an independent distributor.
We reached out to all local EA employees and their Australian overlords at the time for a comment and were summarily ignored. In fact we haven’t actually heard a thing from them since then and now that E3 is over we started to breathe again and follow up on some old stories.
One being the EA one and guess what? Back on the 6th of June EA Games gave an official comment to dogaming and have confirmed that they are indeed shutting down.
In their article they claim that “other media outlets” were speculating; thanks for the link back! We appreci.. oh wait you didn’t. Anyway moving on.
When asked for comment we had the following to say
“We told you so”
So what was our speculation? Well we said the new distributor hadn’t yet been chosen but we expect Apex Interactive to have a good chance as they were already sub-distributing EA titles at the time. Well EA has now confirmed that it has slashed all but two jobs in South Africa with Ralph Spinks (marketing) and Grant Oliver (Sales) being spared the cut. Apex has been confirmed as the new official EA Games distributor locally and the rest of the staff have been let go with fair compensation packages.
This is a major coup for Apex who have now moved from a previous 5th place a few years back to now being easily in the top 3.. granted there are only 3 left but the EA Games suite is a huge boost for what has always seemed to be a nice group of guys and girls.
Ralph Spinks has been a part of EA longer than we’ve been around so it’s no surprise he has stayed on board and since we don’t deal with sales I have no idea who Grant is – but we wish them the best of luck working in their reduced capacity.
As for the Australian PR guys we reached out to; thanks for nothing. We look forward to seeing you at Gamescom later this year.
Last Updated: June 24, 2013
Happy Hamster
June 24, 2013 at 07:49
They had a good run while it lasted
Captain Minion TallTwit
June 24, 2013 at 07:52
When asked for comment we had the following to say
“We told you so”
^ WINNING!
Gavin Mannion
June 24, 2013 at 08:14
i absolutely refuse to grow up… my mommy says I don’t have to
Captain Minion TallTwit
June 24, 2013 at 08:20
Hehe…
Brady miaau
June 24, 2013 at 09:02
amen to that.
CaptainNemo42
June 24, 2013 at 09:43
Growing up is for children!
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
June 24, 2013 at 09:44
Hahahaha
Trevor Davies
June 24, 2013 at 08:18
I expected a bit more information from an article saying it’s the “full story”.
Captain Minion TallTwit
June 24, 2013 at 08:23
Agreed.
MaX
June 24, 2013 at 08:24
Lazygamer just trolling EA… nothing more to mention
Gavin Mannion
June 24, 2013 at 08:57
As I said.. closing loose ends…
Brady miaau
June 24, 2013 at 09:02
but ever so elegantly…..
Harvey P. Cheesewinkle
June 24, 2013 at 08:25
I expect someone who’s going to complain about a quoted passage from an article, to actually have read the story and noted that nowhere, does the quote they wrote, appear in said story.
Trevor Davies
June 24, 2013 at 09:12
It’s in the headline. Irony FTW.
Harvey P. Cheesewinkle
June 24, 2013 at 14:53
All it says is EA South Africa has closed. There is no ‘full story’ in the headline.
HvR
June 24, 2013 at 08:26
I do not think there is more to the story.
EA is an evil money grabbing company who always want to maximize short term profits so they layed off 10% of their workforce. EA south african office, other small region office and the mobile development was also in the firing line.
HvR
June 24, 2013 at 08:21
” thanks for the link back! We appreci.. oh wait you didn’t”
The only thing Telkom have ever linked back was their anuses to their faces to make talking bull shit more efficient.
Wtf101
June 24, 2013 at 08:43
Just as long as I can get my Sims fix, I do not care if Malema distributes EA Games in the future. (We will make this household ungovernable!)
I am honestly though feeling bad for the guys at EA that lost their jobs. And what exactly is a fair dismissal package, pray tell?
Gavin Mannion
June 24, 2013 at 08:56
we don’t have details.. all we’ve heard is that it was generous. I fail to see why our guys have to get fired while the execs earn bonuses myself
HvR
June 24, 2013 at 09:01
They normally use the word generous if its more than the minimum (month notice + week for every year in service), so probably 1.5 to 2 weeks per year service OR extra month or 2 pay.
Anon A Mouse
June 24, 2013 at 10:01
You’re talking about EA so it’s probably R1 more than the bare minimum 😉
Jonah Cash
June 24, 2013 at 08:46
Sad to hear that people lost their jobs!! Good luck to those guys!!
Ryanza
June 24, 2013 at 09:29
If only they would close down Origin then i would be happy.
Dave
June 24, 2013 at 20:29
Do gaming… a real bunch of pros…