The company has been bleeding money for half a decade. The question isn't whether we want EA to go (and I very much do because I've watched IP languish under EA and so many smaller companies vanish into EA's gaping maw only to see their work turn to shit), but when it will go.
This is a company that has made, roughly, three and a half to four billion bucks a year in sales every year since 2008. In 2009, when they had their strongest sales of 4.21 billion, they lost a billion dollars.
Consider that for a moment. EA, at a time when it was making the most money it could, managed to spend a billion bucks more than it earned. What came out that year from EA? Dragon Age. Mass Effect 2. The Sims 3. They rode Maxis' & Bioware's good stuff all the way to the bank and not only didn't turn a profit, but posted the largest loss in the company's history!
This is not a company that is running properly. This is a company that is broken and needs to either undergo a massive restructuring or to die and act as a warning for other people who want to make video games their livelihood.
And does that mean that lots of hardworking folks will lose their source of income? Yes, yes it does. Quite a few people have already suffered in that way (at least 2600, by the press releases) from the inner workings of EA. Good people get hurt by bad people doing bad things on a consistant basis. The way that stops is by taking the bad people, giving them the punishment they've earned, and trying to help those who are left standing to continue on. The game industry will have a lot to absorb when EA falls but the talented and the experienced will find a way to survive.
I loved EA once. I loved M.U.L.E., Archon, The Seven Cities of Gold, and Mail Order Monsters. EA helped shape my childhood and I will always remember it fondly. But this corporation is bloated, poorly managed, and needs to pay for its folly. Otherwise, it will just keep right on going, making life harder for others in the industry and preventing change that improves our games by championing broken and backwards business plans.
