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Veteran UK developer Codemasters has suffered a spherical of layoffs following the launch of racing video games F1 23 and EA Sports activities WRC.
Codemasters proprietor EA confirmed the redundancies in a press release issued to IGN, though did not disclose the variety of employees affected.
“Our enterprise is continually altering as we attempt to ship wonderful video games and companies that maintain our gamers engaged, related, and impressed,” an EA spokesperson mentioned. “At occasions, this requires the corporate to make small-scale organizational modifications that align our groups and assets to satisfy evolving enterprise wants and priorities. We proceed to work carefully with these affected by these modifications, offering acceptable assist all through this course of.”
EA purchased Codemasters, finest identified for the racing franchises Grid, F1, and Dust, in 2021 for $1.2 billion. On the time, EA boss Andrew Wilson mentioned he wished to let the corporate retain its id with out an excessive amount of outdoors interference. Codemasters CEO Frank Sagnier and CFO Rashid Varachia left quickly after, and Codemasters, together with Venture Vehicles developer Barely Mad Studios, was made part of EA Sports activities.
Then, in Might final yr, EA merged the event crew at Codemasters Cheshire with Guildford-based Criterion Video games to create one massive improvement studio to work on Want for Velocity Unbound, which struggled to search out an viewers. Codemasters Birmingham continued to work on the Method 1 franchise.
This yr, Codemasters launched two racing video games which have struggled to search out industrial success: F1 23, which got here out in June, and EA Sports activities WRC, which launched in November. Codemasters holds the official licence of the World Rally Championship, and WRC is the studio’s first rally recreation to have the official WRC licence since 2002’s Colin McRae Rally 3. IGN’s WRC evaluate returned a 6/10. We mentioned: “EA Sports activities WRC appears like a fantastic racing recreation attempting to combat its method out of an unfinished one.”
The layoffs at Codemasters include EA’s racing recreation franchises floundering. With the Want for Velocity sequence a far cry from the glory days of the mid-2000s, the Burnout sequence lifeless, and Codemasters’ licensed titles failing to maneuver the needle, the way forward for racing video games on the writer is unclear.
The layoffs additionally come at a very tough time for the online game business, significantly within the UK. Codemasters is only one of a variety of UK online game corporations which have endured monetary issues in 2023. Frontier Developments, which can be going by means of a spherical of redundancies, issued a buying and selling replace after Realms of Damage gross sales flopped. Worms maker Team17 has issued a revenue warning and is making employees redundant. IGN not too long ago reported on vital redundancies set for Sega-owned Inventive Meeting after the cancellation of extraction shooter Hyenas. Elsewhere, Fall Guys developer Mediatonic was mentioned to have been “decimated” by layoffs triggered by dad or mum firm Epic Video games, creator of battle royale Fortnite.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You’ll be able to attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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