A number of layoffs still unknown
You have to believe that even when a game has the best launch of a series more than twenty years old, you can lose your job less than six months later. This is the story of Electronic Arts, of Battlefield 6 and some of the developers who worked on it.
EA has indeed announced that it will layoffs within the four studios united around Battlefield: Dice, Criterion, Ripple Effect and Motive Studios. A spokesperson for the American publisher gave the reasons for such a procedure to IGN:
We’ve made some changes across our Battlefield organization to better align teams with what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our highest priorities, and we continue to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and analysis from Battlefield Labs (the testing program including part of the community, editor’s note)
The community, in fact, did not really appreciate the first season of Battlefield 6disappointed patch after patch, to the point that season 2 launched in February was postponed by a few days. The FPS is also less popular on Steam, reaching around 67,000 players simultaneously, compared to the crazy peak of 747,000 during the launch period. And let’s not talk about free-to-play and battle royale Redsecnot particularly popular, to say the least.
From there to necessarily having to separate part of your team? Obviously, for the American giant. However, this will always remain avoidable and we do not know precisely how many members are affected and to what extent this or that studio is impacted.
And while the acquisition by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners is not 100% finalized, Electronic Arts added that these layoffs were not linked to this procedure. We are waiting to know in more detail the extent of the damage, but we extend our support to those affected.