Archive News
Gaming giant plans 1,300 more jobs at Galway base
Date Published: 24-Sep-2012
BY ENDA CUNNINGHAM
Online gaming giant Electronic Arts is set to create up to 1,300 new jobs in Galway – on top of the 700 already announced – over the next two years, the Sentinel has learned.
The company’s offshoot, BioWare, is understood to have major expansion plans for its Network Operations Centre here over the next 24 months.
A source within the company told this newspaper that the workforce is likely to reach 2,000 in Galway by the end of 2014.
However, an official spokesperson was remaining tightlipped yesterday (Monday).
She told the Sentinel that nothing has been announced beyond the current 700 positions “for now”.
It is understood that senior executives in the company are delighted with Galway as a location and this has led to the decision to invest heavily here.
The company announced 200 jobs for Galway in May 2010 – by the time it was launched in September 2011, a further 200 jobs were announced, and last week, the creation of another 300 was confirmed.
The local talent pool and infrastructure, along with the city’s reputation as the country’s culture capital were key factors in securing the investment from EA.
The Galway facility offers multilingual for online gamers around the world for their role-playing games, many of which are MMOs (massively multi-layer online) 24 hours per day with titles such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and FIFA 13.
Gaming is big business and continuing to grow – this year, EA reported revenues of $4.1 billion.
Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel