This isn't necessarily as dramatic as it sounds. EA has an interesting "job ecosystem": They buy smaller companies, keep them alive for 1-2 games, then tend to close said companies' offices and either fire the staff they "inherited" or offer them positions at EA's main offices.<p>I've heard that EA Canada is only losing about 3% of their people, and that other large offices are being similarly lightly hit; so this sounds to me more like EA deciding that now is a good time to get rid of some underperforming employees and several inherited offices rather than any sort of major internal shake-up.
For those that follow gaming, it isn't a surprise that EA is shrinking. The article doesn't say so, but I would imagine it is the lower level people getting laid off for the upper level's constant terrible decision making. Sad.