PopCap - redundencies hit Seattle and Dublin studios

PopCap has laid off over 50 employees at its Seattle headquarters and its studio in Dublin has also seen redundancies, according to the firm's co-founder John Vechey.

According to a blog post written by Vechey, the cuts were made as part of an reorganization effort "due to the fast-moving changes in the mobile games market," while maintaining a profit.

Vechey said PopCap will also be evaluating "the future of [the] PopCap office in Dublin, Ireland" as it assesses whether a path to improve "profitability in Europe without having to close the operation," can be found.

"In the past year, we've seen a dramatic change in the way people play and pay for games," Vachey said on the official PopCap blog. "Free-to-play, social and mobile games have exploded in popularity. That happened fast. Surprisingly so. The change in consumer tastes requires us to reorganise our business and invest in new types of games on new platforms. It's a completely different world from when we started," he said.

"There's also an economic component to the reorganisation. To stay in business, we need to manage costs, improve efficiency and maintain a profit."

Rumors of impending lay-offs first surfaced yesterday, and earlier today, VG247 was told the developer had been quietly making staff cuts for months.

PopCap expects to hire more staff by the end of the year after the reorganization, and Vechey said some of the employees let go could find a new position somewhere within EA.

Earlier, it was reported the studios in Ireland and Shanghai had been shuttered, but Vechey's blog post makes no mention of the sort.

The news of lay-offs occurred not long before the announcement of the firm's Plants vs Zombies 2, which is slated for a northern spring 2013 release.

Thanks, CVG.