EA Mythic Says Layoffs Unrelated to Warhammer Delay

Mark Jacobs of EA Mythic has said that recent layoffs at the studio are unrelated to the latest delay in the studio's long-awaited Warhammer Online MMOG.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Jacobs said the layoffs are "absolutely unrelated" to the change in the Warhammer schedule. EA announced yesterday that the game would not see the light of day until the first quarter of fiscal year 2009, the latest in a long series of delays that have plagued the game's development. At the same time, the company also said it would be shutting down its studio in Chertsey, England.

"That's a question that's asked all the time, and I understand why - but in any course of development, there are going to be times when you let some people go," Jacobs said. "That's just what happens. The timing was unfortunate. We had some changes to make both within the UO team and the Warhammer team, at the same time that EA was also preparing layoffs."

"It came out as a much bigger deal than it is in terms of numbers," he continued. "EA Mythic, don't forget, includes our development team on Warhammer, development team on Camelot, development of UO, customer service, IT, everything... So even when you look at the layoffs across the entire studio, the numbers were really small. It had no effect on the Warhammer schedule."

The full interview is available here.