BioWare Lays Off 50 Employees In Studio Restructuring

Developer Blackbird Interactive has announced that it has laid off more than 40 employees. The layoffs come in light of several of the studio’s upcoming projects getting cancelled. The layoffs came to light thanks to a post on LinkedIn by former technical artist at Blackbird Interactive James Marshall, who revealed that more than 40 people were laid off from the studio. A spokesperson for the studio released a statement, according to IGN, confirming that 41 employees were let go.

Imagendary Studios has "deeply restructured" with its future in significant question, according to a now-former employee posting on LinkedIn last week.

Some unfortunate news from Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare: the studios has announced that it'll be «eliminating approximately 50 roles», in an attempt to reshape the company for the better.

BioWare recently announced that it will be letting go of around 50 employees in a fresh round of layoffs, as it looks to become a more “agile” studio, and as it turns out, the list of people who’ll be departing the company as a result includes quite a few notable ones.

As part of its recently publicised cutbacks, BioWare has «let go of» Lukas Kristjanson, the lead writer behind Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and the writer of the first three Dragon Age games, Mary Kirby.

BioWare writer Lukas Kristjanson, who has worked at the studio for more than 25 years, has been laid off. This comes as 50 developers lose their jobs at BioWare, despite having at least two huge games in development: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and Mass Effect 5.

T-Mobile may be ahead of its carrier rivals Verizon and AT&T in an effort to improve coverage and provide more affordable pricing to consumers, but it comes at a significant cost, which has now affected the livelihoods of 5,000 employees. CEO Mike Sievert shared details that the company had to trim 7 percent of its workforce, stating that retaining thousands of customers has become financially taxing.

BioWare is laying off 50 employees, studio manager Gary McKay announced yesterday. No mention of what roles were being made redundant was made at the time, only that the studio's «commitment remains steadfast» when it comes to the upcoming Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. That's hard to believe now, in light of the fact that writer Mary Kirby, who gave the world the hairy-chested Varric, is among those looking for new employment. 

Maintaining relevancy and longevity is one of the hardest things to do in the video game industry. As weird as it is to say, it’s “easy” to make a good game if you follow certain principles and know what you’re doing. That’s why the indie game market is full of up-and-coming teams and talents primed to take over. But what’s hard is to make great games consistently and profit from them, especially with the rising cost of titles and the increased call for quality. Bioware was a developer who once dominated the industry, and now they’re very far from the point in their history.

BioWare is a large studio known for titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda and Dragon Age: Inquisition. It appears that all is not well at the studio, as on August 23, it announced that it is “eliminating approximately 50 roles.”

Dragon Age and Mass Effect’s storied developer BioWare have laid off around 50 employees, including veteran devs who had been with the company for 20 years, in what they call a “shift towards a more agile and more focused studio.” The reasoning behind the job cuts has a now-rote focus on efficiency that sadly echoes other redundancy announcements from this year - including ones from other widely admired studios like Firaxis and CD Projekt Red.

BioWare, the studio behind Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, has announced that it is laying off around 50 staff members to «meet the needs of upcoming projects» and to make the studio «more agile and more focused».