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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 workers affected.
“Our enterprise is consistently altering as we attempt to ship superb video games and companies that preserve our gamers engaged, related, and impressed,” an EA spokesperson stated. “At instances, this requires the corporate to make small-scale organizational adjustments that align our groups and sources to fulfill evolving enterprise wants and priorities. We proceed to work carefully with these affected by these adjustments, offering acceptable assist all through this course of.”
EA purchased Codemasters, finest identified for the racing franchises Grid, F1, and Grime, in 2021 for $1.2 billion. On the time, EA boss Andrew Wilson stated he wished to let the corporate retain its identification with out an excessive amount of exterior interference. Codemasters CEO Frank Sagnier and CFO Rashid Varachia left quickly after, and Codemasters, together with Undertaking Automobiles developer Barely Mad Studios, was made part of EA Sports activities.
Then, in Could final yr, EA merged the event workforce at Codemasters Cheshire with Guildford-based Criterion Video games to create one giant improvement studio to work on Want for Pace Unbound, which struggled to search 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 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 sport to have the official WRC licence since 2002’s Colin McRae Rally 3. IGN’s WRC evaluate returned a 6/10. We stated: “EA Sports activities WRC looks like an awesome racing sport attempting to combat its approach out of an unfinished one.”
The layoffs at Codemasters include EA’s racing sport franchises floundering. With the Want for Pace 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 trade, notably within the UK. Codemasters is only one of quite a lot of UK online game corporations which have endured monetary issues in 2023. Frontier Developments, which can be going via 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 workers redundant. IGN lately reported on important redundancies set for Sega-owned Artistic Meeting after the cancellation of extraction shooter Hyenas. Elsewhere, Fall Guys developer Mediatonic was stated to have been “decimated” by layoffs triggered by father or mother 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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