EA has laid off a number of employees across its Battlefield studio group, according to a new report, and the company’s justification for doing so is exactly the kind of hollow corporate statement you’d expect.
According to IGN, an unknown number of employees have lost their jobs across studios including DICE, Motive, Criterion, and Ripple Effect, and the layoffs have apparently affected staffers across various departments and offices.
In a statement given to IGN, an EA spokesperson says the layoffs are part of “select changes” EA is making to its Battlefield studios “to better align [its] teams around what matters most to [its] community”. Once again, a big corporation hides behind “realignment” when cutting staff.
Battlefield 6 got off to a very strong start last year, earning itself seven million sales within its first week and becoming the best-selling game across all formats in the month of its launch.
Since then, though, reviews and player counts have slipped, with some recent Steam reviews alleging problems with the game’s monetization, as well as poor map design and other issues.
A quick look at Battlefield 6‘s Steam numbers also show that its 24-hour player peak (at time of writing) is less than a tenth of its overall high of just under 750,000 back in October. Losing players is inevitable for a live-service game, but that’s a very long way to fall.
Still, Battlefield 6 is far above Call of Duty in the concurrent player stakes, so it seems that while Battlefield 6 was EA’s most successful franchise launch to date, it still wasn’t successful enough to sustain the publisher’s seemingly endless hunger.
These layoffs are just the latest in a long string of industry cuts, studio closures, and project cancellations. One rather wonders just how much longer the industry, and specifically the big-budget triple-A industry, can continue to hemorrhage employees and studios before something snaps.
In any case, you can check out Battlefield 6 right now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and you can read our very own Austin’s review of the game right here.
