Nothing hurts more than losing a job. While being fired is one thing, being laid off is another beast. If you’re a full-time employee, you might get a severance package to help tide you over while you look for another job. If you’re a freelancer… You’re out of luck. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the case for all 200 QA testers working on Apex Legends for EA. According to new reports, Electronic Arts has unexpectedly closed the entire Baton Rouge QA branch. Here’s what we’ve heard about the situation so far.
Apex LegendsQA Testers Fired Over Zoom
At 8:00 AM Tuesday morning, EA’s Baton Rouge QA studio was contacted by their contracting company with an “out of the blue” Zoom call. Apparently, the call concluded with the whole QA team being disbanded, leaving over 200 people out of a job. The only people offered a severance package were full-time supervisors. After the Zoom meeting announcing the disbandment of the studio, employees were able to recover their belongings under supervision from security. Unsurprisingly, former employees took to Twitter to vent their frustrations.
EA just fired its entire Baton Rouge studio, which is essentially their entire Apex Legends QA staff. — Ben (@TopMarx420) February 28, 2023
