EA's CEO got a $38.6M pay package the same year he laid off Battlefield studio workers
EA's chief executive Andrew Wilson took home $38.65 million in total compensation for fiscal year 2026 — a raise of $8.15 million over the prior year — while four studios that built Battlefield 6 were hit with layoffs just months earlier. The CEO-to-median-employee pay ratio came out to 305:1, with EA's median worker earning $126,612. The timing is hard to ignore.
Record game, studio cuts
Battlefield 6 broke franchise records on launch: more than 7 million copies sold in the first three days, 172 million matches played, and over 15 million hours streamed. EA declared it a success. Then, in March 2026, the company cut jobs across DICE, Criterion, Ripple Effect, and Motive — the four studios that made the game — to "better align its teams," per Engadget. Developers who shipped a record-breaking title found themselves out of work weeks later.
What the numbers say
Wilson's $38.65 million package breaks down as $1.3 million in base salary, a $6.5 million cash bonus, and $28 million in stock awards, according to the EA 10-K filed with the SEC. His senior leadership fared well too: CFO Stuart Canfield earned around $11.3 million, President Laura Miele took $13.7 million, Chief People Officer Mala Singh received $8.3 million, and General Counsel Jacob Schatz pulled in $8.4 million.
EA's 10-K also highlights Battlefield 6, EA Sports FC performance, and accelerating AI integration as the drivers of the year's results — the same results that justified executive rewards. GameDeveloper notes the filing explicitly ties Wilson's bonus to franchise metrics.
A familiar pattern
This isn't the first time EA shareholders have pushed back on executive pay. A nonbinding "no" vote in 2021 signaled discontent, but the company's compensation structure has continued in the same direction. The contradiction — record commercial success, studio layoffs, and a ballooning CEO package in the same fiscal year — is increasingly common across the games industry, but EA's numbers make the gap unusually visible. Whether the developers who shipped that record launch share in the upside is not addressed in the filing.
