Sega blames poor financial quarter on "weak" sales of recent games

We’re well past the pandemic. Just a few years ago, we were all in all kinds of lockdown orders. People were told to stay home and keep away from each other as healthcare officials worked through a proper vaccine. This move forced so many jobs to become remote, allowing a transition to continue working at home without having to venture back to the offices. However, we’re seeing more companies, such as Rockstar Games, request employees to return.

EA has confirmed they are closing Ridgeline Games.

Electronic Arts has announced the closure of Ridgeline Games, the studio working on a new single-player Battlefield campaign.

EA is the latest game company to announce layoffs, with 5% of its workforce to be made redundant. From the most recent headcount EA provided – 13,400 in March 2023 – that would amount to around 670 people.

Sega executives have suggested that competition with Super Mario Bros. Wonder hurt the sales of Sonic Superstars when it was first released. The latest 2D iteration of the classic franchise, featuring a speedy hedgehog, was launched last year to average reviews and notably poor sales. Sonic Superstars managed to replicate much of the old-school gameplay of the series but seemingly failed to wow critics or fans, and this translated to a disappointing launch.

Sega executives have implied that Super Mario Bros Wonder was responsible for Sonic Superstars selling fewer copies than expected.

Supermassive Games, the UK developer responsible for well-liked narrative horror games like Until Dawn, The Quarry, and The Dark Pictures Anthology is the latest studio to be hit with the layoff bug afflicting the industry. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, around 90 employees, which represents nearly a third of Supermassive’s 300-strong staff, have been laid off. Supermassive themselves acknowledged the layoffs via the following statement…

Ridgeline Games, a relatively new development studio owned by publishing giant Electronic Arts, has lost one of its founders. This comes after one of the studio's key figures also left in January and joined another game company.

The Dark Pictures Anthology and Little Nightmares III developer Supermassive Games will lay off roughly 90 staff, or about 30 percent of its work force, according to a report by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier. Employees were informed of incoming job reductions via email this morning.

Halo co-creator Marcus Lehto was enlisted by Electronic Arts in 2021 to lead a new studio in Seattle and work on narrative-driven campaigns for the Battlefield series, and the following year, that studio was formally unveiled as Ridgeline Games, and confirmed to be in charge of “expanding the narrative, storytelling, and character development opportunities in the Battlefield series.”

Sega announced at The Game Awards in December that Crazy Taxi was one of five (and perhaps more) classic properties that was getting a grand revival, and though the publisher has doles out nothing but the briefest of details on the game since then, it’s clear that the game is being treated as a significant, flagship project.

Brotato has been installed over a million times since its release on Xbox Game Pass. Many excellent games have been added to Xbox Game Pass in 2024, and Brotato was among the best surprises of these additions, considering it’s a low-budget indie title that managed to make an excellent impression among most of its players.