EA Israel Development Center

EA Israel Development Center was established in May 2018 after Electronic Arts acquired cloud-gaming technology assets and personnel from a wholly owned GameFly subsidiary. The Caesarea-based team had 50 members and became EA's Israel development center, while joining the company's broader functional and central technology organizations.[1][4]

The operation continued a local cloud-gaming lineage that began with Playcast and passed through GameFly. It worked on streaming technologies and EA's own cloud-gaming services until 2023, when EA closed the office after deciding to end its internal cloud-development activities in Israel.[1][2]

The Caesarea facility traced its origins to Playcast, an Israeli streaming-technology startup founded in 2007.[3] Its technology streamed commercial console games to other devices, including televisions, through Playcast's software and servers. Players could control games with a mouse or gamepad connected to a television's USB port.[3]

In 2015, GameFly announced its acquisition of Playcast. Industry sources valued the deal at about $30 million, and GameFly intended to use Playcast's streaming infrastructure as the basis for its move into game streaming. Playcast then became GameFly's Israel development center.[3][1]

GameFly announced GameFly Streaming alongside the acquisition and initially offered it exclusively on Amazon Fire TV.[3] The service used the Israeli team's technology to bring streamed games to GameFly's existing audience of game renters, using a model likened to Netflix.[3][1]

On May 22, 2018, EA announced that it had acquired cloud-gaming technology assets and personnel from a wholly owned GameFly subsidiary.[4] The 50-member Caesarea team became EA's Israel development center, and the transaction closed that month. No financial terms were disclosed.[1][4]

EA said the Israeli team would retain its structure and continue developing technology for the company.[1] It was to join EA's functional teams, including the central technology organization responsible for developing and operating the platform behind EA's games and services.[4]

EA did not acquire the game-streaming technology that GameFly's Israel unit had developed. Instead, it planned to create its own services using the acquired technology and expertise.[1]

EA presented the acquisition as part of its strategic focus on advanced technologies. The company argued that cloud gaming could expand access by streaming high-quality entertainment to more players, devices, and regions while enabling next-generation experiences at scale.[4]

EA CTO Ken Moss called cloud gaming "an exciting frontier that will help us to give even more players the ability to experience games on any device from anywhere."[4] The center was intended to develop a cloud-based game-streaming service for EA, extending a line of Israeli streaming work that had moved from Playcast to GameFly and then to EA.[1][5]

In April 2023, EA informed employees that the Caesarea center would close, attributing the decision to the end of its internal cloud-development activities in Israel.[2] The center had grown from 50 employees in 2018 to 63 according to LinkedIn data, and most were expected to be laid off. EA said it would work with affected employees and offer support.[2]

The closure also formed part of broader EA workforce reductions announced in March 2023. More than 700 employees, or about 6% of the company's worldwide workforce, were slated to be laid off.[5]

EA said the center closed because it was ending its internal cloud-development activities in Israel. Globes separately reported accounts from several EA Israel employees who said the parent company was concerned about economic instability surrounding Israel's planned judicial overhaul; the report also cited the global technology-investment crisis, inflation, and falling sales as contributing factors. These were employee accounts and contextual factors, not EA's stated explanation.[2]