Following the shocking closure of legendary RPG studio BioWare, Electronic Arts has posted a lengthy missive laying out its plans for "EA's next chapter," which sounds very much like cuts almost across the board.

I'll spare you the corporate gobbledygook about challenging assumptions, confronting assumptions, and imagining new possibilities, and cut straight to the chase: The plan is to do fewer things with fewer people focusing on its biggest franchises. What that works out to practically:

Of course, there's also a gross little nod to BioWare and the end of Mass Effect: "As we focus on these larger opportunities, we've had a small team at BioWare working on early-development for Mass Effect. We've made the decision not to move forward with this development, which means we’re closing the studio and our Edmonton workspace. BioWare is a legendary studio that helped define the role-playing genre, and we do not take this decision lightly."

The message doesn't specifically reference the layoff of around 400 employees at Electronic Arts reported by Bloomberg, but it does say some of the changes announced today "are difficult, especially for the people and teams across the company who are directly affected," which is the sort of mealy-mouthed guffola put out by C-suites when they don't want to say with clarity that they just hacked out a significant chunk of their workforce.

One other thing I find interesting about this announcement: It's attributed to Cam and David, who I assume are Cam Weber and David Tinson , recently installed near the top of EA as president and chief studios officer, and president and chief operating officer.

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