EA Games separates from EA Sports to become EA Entertainment

What appears to be Liara appearing in the first teaser for the Next Mass Effect game — (Image credit: EA)

EA is restructuring, and will separate its development staff into two major divisions: EA Sports and EA Entertainment.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson will continue to preside over both divisions, so it's perhaps best to think of this as an internal business restructuring rather than a full-on de-merger. Wilson says in the announcement that "this evolution of our company continues to empower our studio leaders with more creative ownership and financial accountability to make faster and more insightful decisions around development and go to market strategies."

EA Entertainment, then, is what we'd generally have called the majority of the publisher's output as EA Games. Laura Miele will be the overall head of EA Entertainment, with groups of studios reporting to other sub-executives. Vince Zampella will continue to lead Respawn and DICE, while Samantha Ryan will continue to run "leading lifestyle franchises and blockbuster single-player experiences" - meaning everything from Mass Effect 5 and Dragon Age 4 at BioWare to The Sims 5 at Maxis. Jeff Karp will similarly continue to head up EA's mobile division.

This comes on the heels of reports that BioWare's making plans to give its Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO to a separate, third-party studio. Hopefully this all means that EA's studios will be able to focus on making the types of games they're best at.

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Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.