Frontier, the developer behind the likes of F1 Manager, Planet Zoo, and other management games, has announced layoffs as part of an organisational review of the business.
27.09.2023 - 16:21 / gameranx.com / Ethan Gach
Hearthstone has been one of the most popular digital collectible card games. It’s a free-to-play title as well and easily accessible to players through mobile devices to the PC platform. Since this game launched in 2014, the gameplay experience has continued to thrive, with players logging in daily and picking up the various launch expansions. However, while the game is apparently doing well, several cuts have been made to the team behind the game project.
This news comes from VGC, who credits Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach. Apparently, there is a restructuring going on right now within Blizzard Entertainment’s Hearthstone team. Several employees walked into work without notice being let go from the game development studio. One of the individuals to comment on the layoff was a Tools Engineer who noted that the team was recently shown just how well the game was doing in a recent team meeting. So it must have been quite a shock for some of the team to walk in and find their jobs were removed.
Layoffs reportedly hit Blizzard today. A tools engineer at the company for 18 years said they were suddenly let go without notice due to a restructuring of the Hearthstone team.
Waiting for comment from Activision Blizzard. pic.twitter.com/HWPADsJjD9
According to Ethan Gach, it looks like a total of ten people were impacted by this restructuring. A statement was also provided to Ethan from an Activision Blizzard spokesperson who stated that these roles were redundant and it was a small number of individuals that were affected by the decision to restructure the development team. We’re not given any insight into what the future holds for Hearthstone with this new move being made internally. At any rate, we’ll likely see Hearthstone continue to turn out new expansions and content for players to enjoy.
In other news for Activision Blizzard, it looks like they are one step closer to being purchased by Microsoft. It was a battle for Microsoft to acquire the company as they fought through different regulators to ensure this purchase wouldn’t harm the competition. However, one of the main regulators to stop this move was the CMA. Now, after answering their concerns, it looks like we are going to see an official approval announcement from the UK regulator soon. The Xbox Game Pass subscription service should also be boosted with several new games. The main reason behind CMA’s decision against the Activision Blizzard acquisition was due to fears Microsoft would become too dominant of a force for cloud gaming. Microsoft’s solution to this concern was to make a deal with Ubisoft, a company that is betting big on the future of cloud-streaming video games.
Frontier, the developer behind the likes of F1 Manager, Planet Zoo, and other management games, has announced layoffs as part of an organisational review of the business.
Monster Train developer Shiny Shoe is removing all in-game monetization from its Steam Early Access roguelike co-op game Inkbound, citing a change in “industry and player sentiment” as the main reason for the removal. With many triple-A games focusing on in-game currency and battle passes as a way to both fund development and make extra money, Shiny Shoe’s decision stands out.
Square Enix Collective, the publisher's indie-focused label, will be dropping Little Goody Two Shoes on PS5 this Halloween. The 'horror narrative adventure' title boasts an eye-catching 90s anime art style, although the game itself is filled with lovingly crafted sprites. Honestly, this one's got potential.
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They had it coming.
Twitch has seen another round of layoffs, though full details are unknown.
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Sources have told Kotaku that developer Naughty Dog has laid off at least 25 contractor positions. Naughty Dog is responsible for Uncharted and The Last of Us series.
2023 has sadly been a year that has seen consistent widespread layoffs in the games industry, and recent days and weeks have seen another flurry of those, with the likes of Creative Assembly, Epic Games, and others having been hit with layoffs. Another company has, unfortunately, now joined that list.
Team17, the publisher of works such as Blasphemous 2, Gord, and Moving Out 2 has entered “a period of consultation,” meaning the company will seek to identify potential redundancies in the organization.
Last week ended with a dire flood of layoffs in the games industry, including Sega, Ubisoft, Blizzard, and Epic games. Unfortunately, this week seems to be following the trend – Team17, developer of the Worms series, and publisher of games like Blasphemous, Dredge, and more, has announced layoffs as well, according to Eurogamer.