Following massive layoffs at its Montreal game studio Electronic Arts has reportedly let an unknown number of employees go across both its UK and India studios.
While details from EA are scant, the publisher appears to be continuing its restructuring efforts. While Develop reports that EA has apparently enacted significant layoffs at its London-based social game developer Playfish, MCV reports that several employees have been made redundant at its Hyderabad (India) studio following EA's decision to shut down some of its social games.
"The redundancies are said to have been made as far as a month ago, before EA announced publicly that it would be terminating the studio's Facebook titles The Sims Social, SimCity Social and Pet Society. Playfish CEO and co-founder Kristian Segerstrale also told Develop that last year Playfish had been split "into multiple EA mobile, Maxis and sports studios plus the core of global digital publishing," Develop reports. Although Segerstrale's comments cannot be read as an indication of a complete shutdown of the company, his tweets do suggest there had been layoffs. "Sad day for @petsociety @TheSimsSocial and @playfish. EA's loss is the London startup community's gain," he tweeted.
Meanwhile, the PlayStation Jobs Twitter account announced that Sony staff along with Evolution Studios and its R&D and Business Information Systems branches will visit Playfish's London office tomorrow to "talk to anyone at risk of redundancy".
EA's fresh round of Indian layoffs come just a couple of months after Gameloft shut down its development operations in Hyderabad and 200 employees lost their jobs. While the publisher did confirm that some cuts had been made, it refused to elaborate on the number of affected staff or what their roles were. "EA is sharpening its focus to provide games for new platforms and mobile. In some cases, this involves reducing team sizes as we evolve into a more efficient organisation," Tiffany Steckler from EA's corporate communications team tells to MCV.
"These are difficult decisions to let go of good people who have made important contributions to EA, and whenever possible we retrain or relocate employees to new roles. Streamlining our operations will help ensure EA is bringing the best next-generation games to players around the world," the statement says.
