Square Enix has laid off "almost half " of IO Interactive's employees as part of what it calls "significant changes" at the studio, according to Develop. In a statement passed on to MCV from Develop, a spokesperson for Hitman series developer IO Interactive said that the Denmark-based studio was moving towards focusing solely on the Hitman series and has cancelled a number of projects and other initiatives that were being worked on as a result.

Electronic Arts has confirmed that it has closed Medal of Honor developer Danger Close. According to EA labels boss Patrick Soderlund, after it put the Medal of Honor franchise on hold, the studio had effectively closed. The majority of employees have left the company or have been absorbed at other studios with in EA including DICE Sweden. EA had previously declined to comment on whether Danger Close had been shut down.

A former employee (who is quoted anonymously) of Draw Something developer OMGPOP said that he/she felt a sense of relief as the entire team was laid off by Zynga. Yesterday the company announced that it had cut 520 jobs - which included the entire staff at OMGPOP. Renamed Zynga New York after its $180 million acquisition during the peak of Draw Something's success, the studio went on to create Draw Something 2 which was released six weeks ago.

Zynga has laid off 520 employees today, closed two offices in New York City and Los Angeles, and cut infrastructure costs. The company hopes that these drastic measures will help it save $80 million in staff costs. Zynga currently has about 2,900 workers and today's news is an 18 percent reduction in its staff numbers.

Mobile games publisher Gree has laid off an estimated 30 employees from its San Francisco office according to reports on Develop and GII. While the exact number of employees let go was not confirmed, the layoffs have been. According to Gree COO Anil Dharni, the staff reduction is part of re-alignment of its U.S. operations.

According to this Kotaku report citing two unnamed sources with knowledge of the situation, TimeGate Studios has laid off its entire staff. The developer behind Section 8 and the co-developer of Aliens: Colonial Marines sent everyone home early today according to the sources.

During its conference call last night to discuss its 2013 fiscal year earnings, Electronic Arts CFO Blake Jorgensen revealed that the company cut ten percent of its workforce in the last quarter, or about 900 employees.

"Our cost reduction plans will reduce our overall headcount by approximately 10 percent," he said during the call.

In Episode 49 of the show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss the ongoing turmoil inside EA, Nintendo's decision to not host an E3 press conference, results of the latest poll and catch up on some mail that went into the silly spam filter. Download Episode 49 now: SuperPAC Episode 49 (1 hour, 3 minutes) 58.5 MB.

Yesterday TechCrunch obtained a leaked memo attributed to EA executive chairman Larry Probst, which details EA's reorganization plans.

The memo notes that core marketing functions will be consolidated into a group called the Global Acquisition Marketing and Marketing Analytics to be overseen by COO Peter Moore and led by Todd Sitrin.

EA's Origin digital distribution platform will now be under the watchful eye of Frank Gibeau's Labels organization, while Andrew Wilson will take on its leadership.

Electronic Arts released a short statement today confirming that layoffs are happening across the company on a worldwide basis, but did not give any specific details on any of its decisions in the last month:

German browser games operator Travian has laid off up to 60 employees due to "internal restructuring," according to a GamesIndustry International report - as reported by its German sister site. Multiple sources have confirmed the move with GII's German reporter during the Quo Vadis event, which is taking place this week in Berlin.

A spokesperson for Harmonix has confirmed with Polygon that the company has laid off an undisclosed number of employees.

"We can confirm that a small number of Harmonix employees were let go today," a Harmonix spokesperson told Polygon. "This decision was made due to shifting staffing priorities for Harmonix's multiple future projects."

Staff at L.A. Noire developer Team Bondi have been laid off after the company's in-development title Whore of the Orient was unable to find a publisher, according to a report on MCV Pacific. According to Superannuation Warner Bros. backed away from a potential publishing deal "right before last Christmas," the publisher never officially or publicly confirmed that it had anything to do with the project.

GameSpot and other outlets are reporting that Electronic Arts continues to lay off its global workforce as part of a restructuring plan to streamline its development apparatus and (obviously) lower costs. According to MCV India the latest studio to be hit by layoffs is EA mobile development operations in India.

Well that didn't take too long. Less than a year after Electronic Arts announced that it would open its customer service center in Galway, Ireland to handle customer services for various game properties in the region, the company has already started laying off staff. EA has been quietly cutting staff and reducing its workforce in the last week or so as part of a cost-cutting measure.

The Vancouver-based development studio that created Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City and SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 has instituted temporary layoffs, according to GamesIndustry International. Speaking to GII a representative for Slant Six Games said that it had to reduce operating cost in the short term and that it hopes to hire back as many employees as it can sometime later on down the road:

Electronic Arts has laid off a number of employees at its Montreal-based mobile game development studio, according to a Polygon report. The company says that these layoffs are part of an overall strategy to streamline operations, though the mobile studio seems to have been impacted the hardest in this latest round of job cuts. No word on whether EA is cutting jobs elsewhere.

Sega has confirmed with Kotaku that it plans to close its Brisbane-based development studio later this year. Sega said that it would close Sega Studios Australia later this year, but gave no particular reason for shutting down the operation.

The publisher says it will shut down Sega Studios Australia later this year; no rationale provided.

Activision has confirmed with GameSpot that it has laid off around 40 full-time High Moon Studios employees following the completion of Deadpool. High Moon Studios is best known for Deadpool and Transformers.

Disney is closing LucasArts, the game development studio that has been a part of the LucasFilms family for decades. Disney said that its shift from an internal development model to a licensing model means that it needs to minimize its risks for its "broader portfolio" of games.

Layoffs have reportedly hit Timegate Studios, the development studio that helped co-develop Aliens: Colonial Marines alongside Gearbox Software. The number of layoffs are unknown at this time but Timegate has confirmed to Polygon that these layoffs have in fact happened.

GamesRadar is reporting that BioWare San Francisco has been shut down and all of its 25 - 30 employees have been laid off, a source within the company tells the publication. The studio, formerly known as EA2D, developed the Facebook game Dragon Age: Legends and Mirror's Edge 2D for browsers.

GamesRadar's source claims that Electronic Arts apparently came to the conclusion that it was "too expensive" to develop mobile games in Redwood Shores, CA.

GameFly, the leader in video game rentals by-mail and on-demand through PC has laid off a number of its staff today as part of a restructuring plan, Joystiq reports. In a prepared statement to Joystiq GameFly CEO Dave Hodess said that these layoffs are part of the company's business aligning itself better to existing console and digital games markets.

GamesBeat is reporting that the Baltimore, Maryland studio that used to be headed up by veteran game developer Brian Reynolds has been shut down by social games publisher Zynga. The studio is responsible for CityVille 2, which Zynga has discontinued. A Zynga spokesperson said the company is trying to place those that were laid off from its Baltimore studio in other studios within the company.

Electronic Arts has laid off staff in its Los Angeles and Montreal studios today, according to multiple reports - including this one over at Polygon. Rumors were flying earlier in the day that Visceral Montreal, the studio behind upcoming shooter Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, had been closed.

Joystiq is reporting that Ziff Davis will be shutting down popular and long-running gaming sites 1UP, GameSpy, and UGO. The new owner of IGN also laid off the editorial staff at all three sites, as well as some employees at IGN. Ziff Davis's parent company J2 Global bought IGN and its various web properties earlier in the month, and today it has decided to focus on its core brands - IGN and AskMen.

UK retailer HMV will close an additional 37 retail stores and cut 464 more jobs, according to a CVG report. The latest round of store closures add to the 66 stores that were recently closed throughout the UK, and the loss of 930 jobs. The closures were announced by Deloitte, the company overseeing HMV's administration.

Kotaku is reporting that Activision has laid off about 30 employees from their global workforce. The layoffs are apparently taking place at Call of Duty: Black Ops II developer Treyarch. A spokesperson for the company tells Kotaku that a "good number" of the layoffs are taking place outside of Treyarch as the company shifts its focus away from games based on licensed properties.

Valve's Gabe Newell took the unusual step of breaking his silence on recent developments inside Valve after it was reported yesterday that as many as 25 employees have been let go. Valve did not confirm that that number was accurate. Among those confirmed to be leaving the company are Valve’s director of business Jason Holtman and hardware engineer Jeri Ellsworth.

More bad news for employees of HMV - particularly those 300 employees that worked for the UK-based retailer in Ireland. The Ireland-based division of the company has been shut down and some 300 employees are to be affected by the closures, according to a report in the Irish Examiner. All 16 of HMV’s stores have been closed according to the report, and the company has admitted that it was unable to find a buyer and that the stores would remain closed.