A week after confirming layoffs across their studios, EA has confirmed that some of those layoffs occurred at Codemasters.
At the end of April, Respawn announced they had layoffs across the studio, which was shortly followed by rumors that EA had layoffs between 300 to 400 developers across their studios. Without revealing the full number, EA confirmed they had layoffs across the whole company shortly afterwards. They said this:
As part of our continued focus on our long-term strategic priorities, we’ve made select changes within our organization that more effectively aligns teams and allocates resources in service of driving future growth.
And then at the start of May, Codemasters revealed that they were ending support for EA Sports WRC, and that they would stop development of their rally racing games altogether. EA took a few days afterwards but they finally confirmed that layoffs in this Southam-based studio. As reported by Video Games Chronicle, EA said this:
As a business, we are constantly evolving to meet the growing needs of our players and driving greater focus across our portfolio. This has led us to look at reducing some roles, while we redeploy as many as possible against our strategic priorities.
As reported by SFGate, this marks the third year in a row that EA has had layoffs across their studios. Of course, we have been reporting these layoffs as well, but the spotlight may not have been placed on EA as much throughout this ongoing wave of layoffs. Microsoft, Sony, and Embracer Group were most visible in the number and frequency of layoffs. Subsequently, we were paying more attention to rumors of development troubles at Microsoft, Sony, and Ubisoft.
It must be said, in spite of the dire news, EA has not closed Codemasters, and we know that they still have F1 25 slated to release at the end of this month for Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. One can’t help wondering if jobs could have been saved at this studio if Codemasters had this and other games planned for the Switch 2. But then, one can’t help wonder that other big “what if”, what if Take-Two Interactive managed to win their bid for Codemasters instead of EA in 2020?
It must be said that Take-Two Interactive had layoffs of their own in this ongoing wave, and even closed studios like Roll7 and Intercept Games. Codemasters may not have been completely safe from layoffs, but could Take-Two have made different decisions that could have kept more people in the company, and ensured they would keep making their rally games? That’s all down to speculation now.
