EA is the most recent game firm to start limiting social gatherings to “fight this pandemic”.
In a post on its official website, EA confirmed all dwell game occasions shall be postponed till “the global coronavirus situation improves.”
Events instantly affected embrace Apex Legends Global Series, FIFA 20 Global Series, FIFA Online 4 Live, and Madden NFL 20 Championship Series. Online occasions, the place members and employees will work remotely, will nonetheless happen as deliberate.
“This has been an unprecedented few days in an already unprecedented time,” says EA within the submit. “As the world works to limit the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, a sweeping set of societal and cultural changes are now impacting all of our daily lives. We’d like to take a moment to update all of you on what we’re doing at Electronic Arts to ensure the health and wellbeing of our employees, while also making sure that everyone is able to keep playing their favorite games.”
“As we take these steps for our Electronic Arts staff, we’re additionally very centered on minimizing any potential for disruption to our gamers. We are assured in our continuity plans. We don’t anticipate main adjustments in our games or providers on account of our groups working from house, however we’re studying by this course of as properly and persistence shall be key. We’re continuously speaking and dealing with our groups internationally to evolve with the scenario.
“These are challenging times for everyone. We’re working to look after our employees and their families, and make sure we’re doing the right and responsible things to fight this pandemic illness. We have amazing technology teams that are making it possible for all of this to happen, and we’re deeply thankful. We now have thousands of employees that have taken equipment to their homes so we can keep our games and services running, and continue working on new projects. We may be doing it from our homes around the world, but we’re doing everything we can to be here for you.”
EA additionally joins a rising variety of game builders asking employees to make money working from home. Earlier at present Rockstar confirmed its improvement group will start working remotely “[i]n the interest of reducing the possible impact of COVID-19”. Both Bungie and Microsoft announced their remote-work plans final week.
According to EA, the corporate is “strongly recommending” all staff all through North America, Europe, and Australia work remotely till April 1 “to help limit potential exposure to coronavirus and minimise the social spread of the illness”.
“Since January, we’ve had a worldwide taskforce carefully monitoring the evolving scenario with coronavirus and dealing day by day to reply to the altering wants of our folks in actual time. We’ve been continuously assessing the chance of publicity within the areas the place we’ve got places of work, guided by the suggestions from native and federal well being authorities, and the data we’re getting from our personal groups.
“In Asia, we’ve worked in accordance with regional health and government guidance. We previously closed our locations in Shanghai, Singapore, and Seoul, as well as our Milan office, with teams working from home. As the situation stabilizes in Shanghai and Singapore, our teams are now returning to work in line with guidance from regional health officials. Our locations in Seoul and Milan remain closed, with those teams continuing to work remotely.”
The submit continues: “Many of those websites, together with our Redwood Shores headquarters, had been already giving staff the choice to make money working from home, and now’s the time for larger measures. We will solely have very restricted employees for business-critical capabilities at these websites — everybody else shall be working remotely. Our senior leaders, web site leaders and IT groups have been working collectively to assist us put together for this.
“We’ve also taken steps to ensure that the vendors and contractors that provide services on-site at our facilities will continue to be paid, even if they’re not able to work from home in their roles.”
