The story claims that the layoffs extend to the development staff, including senior designers. Shacknews has contacted Mythic owner Electronic Arts for comment.

Original story: Tucked away in yesterday's Electronic Arts conference was the news that Mythic's MMO Warhammer Online has seen its player base reduced to a lean 300,000 subscribers.

The number places Warhammer's base ahead of MMOs such as EverQuest II and Lord of the Rings Online, but far behind behemoths like Lineage and World of Warcraft.

Following Warhammer's September launch, developer Mythic had registered 750,000 players of the game. By early November, Electronic Arts was reporting that Warhammer had accumulated over 800,000 subscribers. But even before the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King launched in November, competitor Blizzard was reporting that up to 46% of Warcraft subscribers who had cancelled their subscription citing Warhammer had already returned. Lich King went on to break sales records, increasing Warcraft's stranglehold on the MMO genre to 11.5 million subscribers.

Though layoffs at Warhammer developer Mythic were rumored last month, the company has reassured fans that it will continue to support the game, announcing a series of updates that will roll out between March and June of this year.