Sega Sega has revealed it will cut 240 jobs at different UK studios, including Creative Assembly and Sega Hardlight.
As the game industry continues to be impacted by widespread job cuts, Sega is the latest company to make significant reductions.
Sega is planning to cut 240 roles at various UK studios, with the biggest impact on its London-based offices at Sega Europe and developer Creative Assembly. Total War A ‘small number’ of positions will be eliminated at Sega Hardlight, the studio that released the mobile title Sonic Dream Team last year.
No mention has been made of other UK-based Sega studios, such as Two Point Studios known for Two Point Hospital, and Football Manager developer Sports Interactive.
This move comes after a round of layoffs at Creative Assembly last year following the cancellation of its online shooter Hyenas.
As part of these cutbacks, Sega has also sold Canadian developer Relic Entertainment, known for the Company Of Heroes games and Age Of Empires 4. As confirmed in a statement, Relic will now operate as an independent studio.
Relic Entertainment will become an independently-run development studio with an external investor, as stated on Twitter. ‘This is a significant change for us, but one thing remains constant; we aim to create outstanding experiences for our players.
‘To our fans, we want to reassure you that we will continue to support our titles, including Company Of Heroes 3 – we are eagerly anticipating the 1.6 update in April, which will be packed with new content and features requested by our community.’
The various teams were informed of the staff cuts by Sega Europe boss Jurgen Post in an email, where he mentioned that the cuts were ‘necessary to ensure the future of our games business’.
‘Sega is collaborating closely with Relic during this transition, and we wish them the best for the future,’ Post wrote (via Gamesindustry.biz). ‘I want to genuinely apologize for the worry and understandable distress this news will cause, particularly for those directly affected.
‘These decisions have been incredibly challenging to make, and they follow thorough consideration and discussion with leadership teams across the business. Change is necessary to ensure the future of our games business and to guarantee that we are well-prepared to deliver the best possible experiences to our players in the future.’
He added: ‘We need to streamline, focus on what we excel at, and position ourselves as best we can for the road ahead. In order to do that, we need to respond to the changing economic landscape and the challenges we’re facing in the way we develop our products and bring them to market.’
Last year, Sega had previously laid off 121 employees at Relic Entertainment due to the need to ‘restructure our organization’ in response to ‘challenging’ external factors affecting the industry at large.
This is part of a broader wave of job cuts across the industry, with staff at Microsoft, Riot Games, Sony and several others all affected in recent months.
