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 consistently altering as we attempt to ship wonderful video games and providers that hold our gamers engaged, linked, and impressed,” an EA spokesperson mentioned. “At occasions, this requires the corporate to make small-scale organizational modifications that align our groups and sources to fulfill 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 Filth, 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 staff 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 seek out an viewers. Codemasters Birmingham continued to work on the Formulation 1 franchise.
This yr, Codemasters launched two racing video games which have struggled to seek 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 overview returned a 6/10. We mentioned: “EA Sports activities WRC appears like an amazing racing recreation attempting to battle its means 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 useless, 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 trade, significantly within the UK. Codemasters is only one of numerous UK online game firms which have endured monetary issues in 2023. Frontier Developments, which can be going by way of a spherical of redundancies, issued a buying and selling replace after Realms of Smash gross sales flopped. Worms maker Team17 has issued a revenue warning and is making employees redundant. IGN just lately reported on important redundancies set for Sega-owned Artistic 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.
