Highlights
- Electronic Arts laid off an undisclosed number of staff at its Vancouver-based skate. developer, Full Circle.
- Despite 15M players and a strong early concurrent peak, the free-to-play title struggled to maintain momentum.
- The layoffs reflect ongoing job cuts across the gaming industry.
Electronic Arts (EA) has laid off an undisclosed number of employees at Full Circle, the Vancouver-based studio behind the free-to-play title skate. The company positioned the transformation as a way to better support skate.’s long-term future.
“These shifts mean making changes to our team structure, and some roles will be impacted,” stated the company, despite highlighting that the affected people are talented and associated with the foundation of skate.
Neither EA nor Full Circle disclosed the number of affected employees. The impacted people have posted on social platforms, including a Senior Surfacing Artist, Tyler De Block. Block Highlighted in his LinkedIn post that the recent layoff at Full Circle underscores the exhausting cycle of layoffs across the gaming industry and expresses solidarity with the impacted employees.
EA’s Statement and Fate of Full Circle
The layoffs come roughly five months after skate. entered early access in September 2025. The title also generated approximately 15M players within three weeks of its launch, highlighting its potential as a free-to-play title.
The title also recorded a 134,901 concurrent player peak during its launch. However, the title failed to retain post-launch momentum. Recent data shows that it failed to surpass 4K concurrent players through last month.
According to EA’s blog post, Full Circle will continue to work on skate. “Our commitment to skate., and to the millions of players who believe in it, remains strong,” stated the company, highlighting its intention to deliver better support for the title.
The layoffs at Full Circle reflect volatility across the video game industry through 2025 and early 2026. Previously, Take-Two, Ubisoft, and the like have gone through significant restructuring and job cuts.
According to a GDC survey, around 28% of professionals in the gaming industry were laid off in the last two years. EA also laid off around 300 employees, including 100 at Respawn Entertainment, in April 2025 . While EA hasn’t linked the layoff decision directly to performance metrics, the company’s recent steps highlight how the publisher has increasingly been favoring quality performance from its affiliated studios and allocating resources likewise.
