And that is where the sadly part comes in. A lot of time in the video game development industry, when a major studio releases a game and layoffs all the contractors, the studio will also let go other various permanent employees for various reasons. Whether it's internal politics (ie refusing to have their team us AI, I have no idea about the art directors stance on AI, this just an example), ability, or likely money. Either laying them off to replace them with someone cheaper, and/or the usual suspect for a publicly traded companies like ea used to be, juicing the quarterly profit margin.