Vancouver’s gaming sector suffered another hit Thursday with the news that PopCap Vancouver and Quicklime Games studios are shutting down as part of Electronic Arts’ continued reorganization.

EA didn’t say how many people will be affected, although one laid-off employee at PopCap said there were about 30 people at that studio, with some possibly moving to jobs at PopCap and EA studios in other cities.

The news quickly spread through social media, with some employees taking to online networks to announce they expected their jobs to be axed.

Designer Justin Nearing is among about 30 employees who got notice that PopCap Vancouver was closing.

“Basically this studio is being shut down,” he said. “They took a look at the overall PopCap as a global business and they took a look at what was succeeding and what wasn’t.

“The product we were working on didn’t quite reach the commercial numbers they needed to hit,” he said of the Facebook game the studio created.

“It wasn’t the very important game that all of PopCap or that all of EA is riding on,” said Nearing. “It was very much an experimental studio mandated to take a few risks, do something cool and see if we can create something awesome.

“While I feel we created something awesome, the numbers weren’t there.”

Nearing said some of the PopCap employees will be placed in jobs with other PopCap or EA studios.

“For people that have kids and stuff, they are going to be more inclined to find another job as quickly as possible than someone who doesn’t have that kind of responsibility,” he said.

Nearing plans to take the summer off and expects he’ll be able to find a job in one of the many indie game studios that have sprung up in Vancouver.

“There are smaller studios that are actually making enough money to be profitable at their level,” he said. “There are a ton of studios that are hiring for our kind of engineers, for our kind of designers, for our kind of artists.”

EA issued a written comment Thursday but did not respond to an interview request.

“In recent weeks, EA has aligned all elements of its organizational structure behind priorities in new technologies and mobile,” EA said in a statement. “This has led to some difficult decisions to reduce the workforce in some locations. We are extremely grateful for the contributions made by each of our employees — those that are leaving EA will be missed by their colleagues and friends.

“These are hard but essential changes as we focus on delivering great games and showing players around the world why to spend their time with us.”

While EA didn’t specify the number of jobs to be cut in its latest reorganization, which was not limited to Vancouver. Industry watchers estimated 100 people are affected by the closures of the Vancouver studios, although there was no confirmation of the layoff numbers for Quicklime.

Thursday’s announcement is the latest in a reorganization that has seen continued job cuts by EA, most recently with 170 people laid off earlier this month in Montreal. It also comes about a month after EA announced CEO John Riccitiello was stepping down.

Matt Toner, the NDP candidate for Vancouver-False Creek, a video game veteran who heads up Zeros 2 Heroes Media and who threw his hat into the political arena last year when another Vancouver game studio closed and moved to Toronto, said the latest closure is resonating around the industry.

“It is looking more and more like the challenge is how do we rebuild this industry in Vancouver,” Toner said, noting the importance of retaining the city’s digital-sector talent.

“The real problem now is the senior talent, the entrepreneurial talent is thinking Vancouver isn’t a good bet,” he said. “This stuff rattles around the whole industry in no time. The game industry knows Vancouver is in trouble.”

With files from Mike Hager

gshaw@vancouversun.com

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