Reikon Games, the developers behind cyberpunky top-down shooter Ruiner, have reportedly become the latest studio to lay off dozens of staff, with over half of the Polish indie said to have lost their jobs earlier this week.
17.01.2024 - 15:50 / gameinformer.com / Wesley Leblanc / Lays Off
PTW, a support studio that's worked with some of the industry's biggest companies like Blizzard, Capcom, and Sega, has laid off about 45 people, as first reported by Kotaku. PTW was previously called Pole To Win and its services include quality assurance, studio support, and localization. Last week, on January 11, someone with knowledge of the studio told Kotaku about the layoffs, noting that roughly 45 people lost their jobs.
The person with the knowledge of PTW also told the publication that the majority of those laid off live outside the United States – it has studios in North America, Europe, and Asia – and were QA workers. However, jobs were cut in other departments, too, Kotaku notes.
«PTW made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce in several countries where we operate,» a PTW spokesperson told Kotaku. «This decision was not made lightly – Our company's core offerings stem from the people who enable us to deliver world-class products and services. We want to thank our departing team members for the time and effort they put into the company.»
These layoffs join a large string of other job cuts that happened last week, following a terrible 2023 for the people who make games and those in game-adjacent industries. Last week, we learned Unity would be laying off 1800 people by the end of March, and that Twitch was laying off 500 employees. Discord also announced it had laid off 170 employees.
In January of last year, Microsoft laid off 10,000 employees amidst its ongoing $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which it completed in October.
Striking Distance Studios, the team behind 2022's The Callisto Protocol, laid off more than 30 employees in August of 2023. That same month, Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare laid off 50 employees, including long-time studio veterans. The following month, in September, Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios laid off roughly 45% of its staff, and Fortnite developer Epic Games laid off 830 employees.
In October of last year, The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog laid off at least 25 employees, and Telltale Games also underwent layoffs, although an actual number of affected employees has not yet been revealed. Dreams developer Media Molecule laid off 20 employees in late October.
In November, Amazon Games laid off 180 staff members, Ubisoft laid off more than 100 employees, Bungie laid off roughly 100 developers, and 505 Games' parent company, Digital Bros, laid off 30% of its staff.
In December, Embracer Group closed its reformed TimeSplitters studio, Free Radical Design, and earlier in the year, Embracer closed Saints Row developer Volition Games, a studio with more than 30 years of development history. A few weeks before
Reikon Games, the developers behind cyberpunky top-down shooter Ruiner, have reportedly become the latest studio to lay off dozens of staff, with over half of the Polish indie said to have lost their jobs earlier this week.
Reikon Games has reportedly laid off 60 to 70 people, equating to 56 percent of the company.
Microsoft will let go of 1,900 employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox this week, it said on Thursday, the latest cuts in the technology sector that has extended massive layoffs over the past years into 2024.
Update: This story has now been updated with a response from a Microsoft spokesperson.
Microsoft is laying off 1900 people across its video game teams, including Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax and Xbox, equating to approximately eight percent of its gaming workforce.
Outriders and Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly has joined the long list of developers and companies in the games industry that have been hit with layoffs, less than a month into 2024. As per a report by Kotaku, the studio has laid off over 30 people.
People Can Fly, the developer behind the likes of Outriders and Bulletstorm, has reportedly laid off «over 30 people» working on a currently unannounced game — codenamed Project Gemini — that's set to be published by Square Enix.
Riot Games have announced that they will shortly lay off "about 530" people, or 11 per cent of their global workforce, so as to "create focus and move us towards a more sustainable future", in the words of CEO Dylan Jadeja. The "biggest impact" will be felt outside of core development, though they'll affect at least one major internal team - the developers of Legends Of Runeterra. Riot are also binning off the Riot Forge publishing label, under which third-party developers create smaller-scale games based on Riot's own intellectual properties.
Riot Games has announced plans to lay off 530 of their employees, or about 11 % of their workforce.
Tencent Holdings' Riot Games plans to lay off 530 employees, or about 11 percent of its staff globally, the online gaming company said on Monday in a blog that included a letter to employees from CEO Dylan Jadeja.
Polish developer and publisher CI Games has announced plans to cut approximately 10% of its workforce.
Thunderful Group has announced a major restructuring programme that will see around 20% of its workforce laid off in an effort to significantly reduce running costs and rebalance the business.