EA was off to an excellent start of the day today with their announcement on the purchase of Playfish Studios, the creator behind Facebook’s Restaurant City. They bought the social games company for around $275 million in cash along with $25 million in equity retention arrangements. What cool new things will this bring us is left to be determined, but if it can bring more Sims and Spore to facebook (hell, even port over Maxis’ original SimCity) I would be as happy as a clam.

Speaking of sales, the results are in for EA’s Fiscal Second Quarter – they recorded a Non-GAAP Net Revenue of $1.15 Billion! No mention of any upcoming projects from the team however.

In not so good news today, it appears that EA has also downsized their studios, axing the jobs of 1500 employees. Locations include EA Redwood Shores, Tiburon, Mythic and Black Box. Studios affected from EA Redwood Shores include The Sims Team and Visceral Games (of Dead Space). What a sad day for these employees. From what I gathered, about 80 people were laid off at Mythic Entertainment. I’m not sure how many were let go from The Sims Team or the other studios. I did hear that a bunch of jobs were also cut from the Quality Assurance department – something which frankly they need to hire more people for, not cut… I’d like to keep all those people who were affected in my thoughts and prayers in hopes for a quick recovery for finding another job.

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