EA CEO’s pay is up, as EA worker median income drops

Behold, the tallest chart in Game File history. PLUS: EA execs were paid (a little) more for boosting generative AI

EA CEO Andrew Wilson last September, at the company’s Investor Day presentation

EA CEO Andrew Wilson received $30.5 million in cash and stock pay for the 12 months ending March 31, 2025, nearly $5 million up from the year before, according to EA’s most recent proxy filing, which was issued earlier this week.

That’s a significant boost for the long-time CEO of the studio behind Battlefield, Dragon Age and Madden.

It also went in the opposite direction as the EA worker pay to which the company annually compares Wilson’s take.

EA reported that the median income for its full-time employees in 2024 was $117,000, down from $149,000 the year before.

Note that EA’s tally for worker pay is disappointingly imprecise. It’s ostensibly based on a median average, not the mean (median = pulling the middle number from a stack of salaries; mean = adding the salary stack together, then dividing by the number of salaries in that stack).

Confusingly, EA says it used “the same median employee” in 2025 that it used to compare compensation with Wilson in 2023 and 2024. It does not explain that workers’ 2025 pay drop, but says its figures for CEO and worker pay both include bonuses and stock grants, which can rise and fall in a given year.

Nevertheless, Wilson’s compensation is up; EA’s chosen comparison figure for worker pay is down.

And here’s how that looks in a chart that shows how the pay of Electronic Arts’ boss and workers has changed since 2018:

Notice how flat that bottom line appears to be?

That’s because, when one is charting multi-million-dollar payouts against low six-figure (at best) payments, it’s hard to show any fluctuations in the lower line.

So, the Game File data viz department (that’s me!) has constructed a second chart to help you better see the changes in both lines.

To do that, I stretched the above chart to a height of 15,000 pixels. It’s a dramatic measure for a dramatic comparison.

Heads up: To see this chart in full, you’ll need to scroll a lot. If you are reading on mobile, put your thumb on the chart, and scroll that part of your screen. After that, there’s more article to read, including EA’s perspective on this…and some news about Wilson’s newest pay incentive, which swaps a push for increasing player’s gaming hours with goals around the use of generative AI.

Done scrolling? Great. As promised, I have more to share about what’s going on here and how Wilson’s pay has changed. See below…