Embattled video game publisher SCi is to cut the entire sales, marketing and PR staff of its Eidos U.S. operation following on from a deal made with Warner Bros, who will be taking over SCi’s North American distribution operations as part of a $170 million bailout package for the publisher.

SCi has been in hot water for the past year, with its share price plummeting, management changing, and the company undergoing a massive restructuring program to cut 25-percent of its workforce worldwide and many of its development projects.

The company has been focusing on its key properties: Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Hitman, and after announcing its restructuring the company cut 14 other projects that had been in development.

SCi has been attempting to tread water until a major investor can come along and either invest capital in the company, or acquire it and subsume it into a larger organisation.

Warner Bros seems to be taking the capital approach of keeping SCi afloat, taking a bigger and bigger chunk of ownership, and gaining benefits in kind such as a new distribution channel for video games in the U.S.

With Warner taking over the U.S. distribution the Eidos staff involved would now seem to be out of a job, according to industry sources.