EA’s Firemonkey Studio is anticipating layoffs, with nearly two-thirds of their 120 total employees of the development team said to be let go. The report comes from Kotaku Australia, indicating that the layoffs would affect where priority of development towards certain current and future titles would go. Two current racing titles still in development from Firemonkey will now be transitioned over to an EA studio based in Hyderabad, India.
The team at Firemonkey first learned of the impending layoffs April 26th, with EA executives directly coming to the Melbourne office to announce the news. EA has indicated that Firemonkey will become a “monotitle” studio, focusing solely on The Sims FreePlay, a mobile Sims game first released way back in 2011. Firemonkey was also known for Need for Speed: No Limits and Real Racing 3, both mobile titles that will now see their development transition to the EA Hyderabad studio. Firemonkey also developed The Sims Mobile— entirely separate from The Sims FreePlay— however the game’s development was fully transitioned to India in 2021.
This isn’t the first time Firemonkey saw layoffs, in 2019 the studio saw nearly 50 of their 200 staff be laid off, with Real Racing 4 in previous development becoming canceled entirely. The reasons for the layoffs this time as reported by Kotaku Australia, merely come down to cutting costs. In March, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the company would be, “moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy.”
While it’s entirely unclear what EA will do next in cost cutting of their studios, Firemonkey now hangs on by a single thread of one title to develop and update. Whether EA cuts the game in the future could effectively shutter the studio entirely.