EA confirms Montreal layoffs

Electronic Arts' Montreal studio has seen a small number of job cuts today, with suggestions that the move doesn't bode well for the mobile team there.

"We made a staffing change in our Montreal studio to align with our current development and service plans," EA said in a statement to Gamasutra.

"A small number of employees were impacted, and we are working closely with each of them to ensure the best transition possible."

Gamasutra also reported a source had said this could be a sign the company was planning to shut its Montreal EA Mobile branch, to which EA responded "these changes do not impact our current development plans."

If social media is to be believed (and it isn't always, so we caution you that we haven't been able to verify the following with EA) EA may have closed its Rocket Squid mobile studio in the past few days.

This tweet, from an unnamed developer, combined with the removal of any mention of Rocket Squid from EA Montreal's corporate page suggest the studio is no more.

GamesIndustry.biz reached out to EA for comment on Rocket Squid's specific situation and was supplied with the following statement:

"I can confirm the change was related to our mobile development efforts in Montreal and these changes do not impact our current development plans. We don't comment on specific teams that were impacted," said an EA spokesperson.

Rocket Squid's role at Montreal was to support EA's mobile development through "product development, platform conversion, appliances launches, integrations, live interview, quality assurance and certification."