EA own Mythic, the team behind Warhammer Online. EA are cutting 1100 jobs. How many of those are at Mythic? We don't know. We do, however, know where Mythic are cutting jobs.
Responding to persistent rumours concerning the scale of layoffs at the company, GM Mark Jacobs has posted on the game's official site, confirming that, yes, there have been cuts, and also where those cuts have been made:
Since the launch last year, the demand for customer service has gone down as players become more familiar with the game. Obviously, demand for a large QA and play-testing staff also falls after launch. As a result, we saw a staff reduction which is in line with the company-wide initiative. In no way does this conflict with our commitment to customer service. Staffing numbers will always map to consumer needs – it goes up when we launch new products and expand popular ones, and comes back down as players become familiar with the game.
Glean what you will from that. Could core Mythic staffers have escaped EA's "company-wide initiative" by culling contract staff they were going to be cut anyway, once the game settled in? Maybe!
Course, there's also a lessened need for support staff when, as was announced during yesterday's EA conference call, it turns out the game's subscriber base has fallen from 700,000 to 300,000...
Update From Mythic [EA]