Layoffs News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Saltsea Chronicles studio Die Gute Fabrik has announced that it’s disbanding.

Supermassive Games have announced a period of consultation and reorganisation that will end in job losses, as the Until Dawn developers try "to ensure the continued sustainability of the company". It follows a report that studio leadership told 150 people their jobs were at risk earlier today, with around 90 staff expected to eventually leave the business following the consultation.

Die Gute Fabrik is done for now, as the studio announced today that it stopped work last week after being unable to land funding for its next project.

Supermassive Games is poised to lay off approximately 90 employees from the company.

Electronic Arts is set to lay off "a small number of staff" due to its decision to close two of its mobile titles: EA Sports MLB Tap Sports and F1 Mobile Racing.

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Everywhere developer Build A Rocket Boy has reportedly been hit with layoffs.

Build a Rocket Boy has reportedly made an unconfirmed number of layoffs.

Activision Blizzard is reportedly planning redundancies at its Irish office located in Blackpool, Cork.

Microsoft is reportedly set to slash more than a hundred jobs at Activision Blizzard's Cork office.

Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM is reportedly planning to lay off 24 employees, in addition to cancelling a project codenamed X7.

Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors said that the current reduction in workforce at the company and across the industry is "something that everyone needs to get through," later adding that the group's strategy has been to cut the things that have "the lowest chance of success going forward" and to only keep "the most iconic studios."

Daybreak Game Company has confirmed earlier reports that there had been layoffs across its teams, but said the number is under 15.

Daybreak has cut staff, the company has confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz.

Embracer Group’s ongoing restructuring has resulted in the company cutting 1,400 jobs, or about 8% of its global workforce, it confirmed on Thursday.

Embracer Group cancelled 29 unannounced games during a six-month period last year, the company confirmed on Thursday.

Embracer have released their interim financial results for Q3, October-December 2023, in which they share details of the conglomerate's on-going efforts to "restructure" and reduce their massive debts, to the tune of hundreds of layoffs over the past year.

The studio behind Homeworld 3, Homeworld: Deserts Of Kharak, and Hardspace: Shipbreaker have cut a number of jobs, explaining this is "part of a realignment plan that's necessary because of new projects that were shelved by some of our partners". Blackbird Interactive haven't confirmed the number of people who lost their jobs, nor have they said what the mystery projects were. It's been a grim year for people working in the video games industry, with thousands losing their jobs, and we're only halfway through February.

Scopely has confirmed it may be cutting ties with a number of employees who had been working on its Kingdom Maker publishing team.

Vancouver-based Blackbird Interactive confirmed to GamesIndustry.biz today that it has laid off staff for the second time in six months.

Layoffs are being reported at Daybreak Game Company, with some at Dimensional Ink, responsible for DC Universe Online, said to be hit. Others across the company are affected in an unknown number of cuts, with more senior staff said to be mostly affected.

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2K Games has laid off yet another round of staff, but this time, we have no idea on how many were actually affected this time around. 

Hidden Path Entertainment founder and creative director Michael Austin confirmed on LinkedIn yesterday that the studio has laid off 44 employees, as spotted by Game Developer.

Activision Blizzard's Crash Bandicoot and Spyro studio Toys for Bob lose 86 employees as a result of layoffs.

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Reikon Games, the studio behind 2017 action game Ruiner, has reportedly laid off around 80% of its staff.

Blizzard’s president Mike Ybarra and its chief design officer Allen Adham are leaving the studio, which has also seen a previously announced survival game cancelled.

The number of games industry job losses announced in January is already more than half the total job losses in the entirety of 2023.

Embracer-owned studio Black Forest Games reportedly plans to lay off approximately half of its employees.

Given that Microsoft have spent considerable time and effort becoming the biggest cock-of-the-walk possible, it does, I suppose, make sense that their layoffs are correspondingly massive. In an internal memo obtained by The Verge, Phil Spencer is very sad to reveal to the staff that, in order to grow, the combined powers of Microsoft's 22k-strong Gaming Division have to be denuded to the tune of 1,900 human beings. That amounts to about 8% of the division.

THQ Nordic and Embracer subsidiary Black Forest Games has reportedly cut 50% of its workforce.

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The new year continues to be a difficult one for the games industry, with Riot Games announcing layoffs affecting about 11% of their global workforce, or around 530 people. The company is also trimming its portfolio, shutting down Riot Forge, pulling back on some other projects, and recentering on its four core live titles: League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, Valorant, and Wild Rift.

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Union membership numbers in the UK have risen significantly, following a tumultuous period in the video game industry (which still continues today).

Games recruitment specialist One Player Mission (OPM) will close down after 26 years.

League of Legends developer Riot Games has announced that it's laying off 11% of its workforce, representing 530 employees.

Riot Games is the latest games industry firm to confirm significant layoffs.

Games industry leaders have suggested that widespread job losses across the market last year will continue throughout 2024 and likely stretch into next year too.

Virtual reality-focused developers Wimo Games have joined the ever-expanding list of studios to be hit by layoffs and closure in recent months, as the Battle Bows and Micro Machines: Mini Challenge Mayhem studio confirmed their closure last week.

Piranha Bytes is reportedly facing closure as part of Embracer Group’s ongoing restructuring efforts.

2K-owned 31st Union laid off a small number of staff yesterday, the studio has confirmed.

Polish developer and publisher CI Games has announced plans to cut approximately 10% of its workforce.

Game Developers Conference organizer Informa released its annual State of the Games Industry survey today, giving a window into developer experiences and attitudes on a variety of subjects, including layoffs, generative AI, unionization, and on which engines and platforms they're making games.

Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive has reportedly made a round of layoffs.

Behaviour Interactive has reportedly laid off 45 staff.

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Netspeak Games yesterday confirmed in a blog post on the studio's official site that it has begun the consultation process to lay off 25 employees.

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Support studio Pole to Win is the latest games firm to be hit by layoffs.

A round of videogame company layoffs following a period of "unsustainable" spending? It must be a Wednesday. Swedish conglomerate Thunderful Group AB - whose corporate possessions include Somerville developer Jumpship and several teams working on the SteamWorld games - have announced that they will lay off around 20 percent of their staff as part of a restructuring program that "stems primarily from over-investments made in the last few years".

Thunderful Group has announced a restructuring programme to decrease costs, which will include both "significant staff reductions" and potential divestments, the company said.

Mobile studio Double Loop Games is calling it quits after four years.

An unknown number of employees have been laid off at Gearbox-owned developer Lost Boys Interactive.

Adding to a painful week in gaming and tech layoffs, Discord is the latest company to announce downsizing, with a 17% cut to its staff.

Discord is reducing its workforce by 170 staffers, 17% of the social media platform.

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It’s time for another pull on the velvet rope labelled “too many games”. In fairness, this time the argument is a touch more involved than perennial moaning about backlogs – to whit, “there are too many games and it’s all the pandemic’s fault”. Nacon’s head of publishing Benoit Clerc has argued that the Covid lockdown years have bred too much investment in new games, and that we’re currently reaping the results in the form of an unsustainable glut of releases.

Amazon-owned Twitch have announced that they will lay off "just over 500" people - almost 35% of their workforce - in the course of on-going plans to "rightsize our company", with CEO Dan Clancy conceding that the streaming service has been operating based on "where we optimistically expect our business to be in 3 or more years, not where we're at today."

Twitch is about to lay off about 35% of its employees, or more than 500 positions. This latest round of layoffs follows others at the Amazon-owned company. Earlier this week, Unity also reported 1,800 layoffs in a brutal start to the year for the industry.

Twitch is laying off 500 employees this month, according to a Bloomberg report.

Unity has announced another round of layoffs as part of its restructuring efforts, resulting in the loss of 1,800 jobs.

Chris Dring and James Batchelor return with our weekly dive into the biggest news stories from the business of video games.

According to arecent report, Bossa Studios has decided to layoff about 1/3 of their staff, as the team continues to focus on PvE Survival title Lost Skies.

Surgeon Simulator developer Bossa Studios has laid off a third of its staff.

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UK developer Bossa Studios has laid off around one third of its staff, GamesIndustry.biz has learned.

Versus Evil, the publisher behind The Banner Saga and Pillars Of Eternity 2, among others, has been closed down and its entire staff laid off. Versus Evil were bought by tinyBuild in November 2021.

TinyBuild has shut down indie publisher Versus Evil.

Versus Evil announced its own closure on social media today.

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It feels somewhat appropriate that probably the last big news story of 2023 is the final death knell of an industry institution. E3 is no more.

3D Realms and Slipgate Ironworks are the latest studios to be affected by Embracer's restructuring program.

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Free Radical Design has reportedly closed down following earlier reports speculating its future.

Rovio has shut down Studio Lumi following its recent acquisition by Sega.

Ah, man, this one really stings. League Of Geeks, the developers behind Armello and the upcoming Solium Infernum remake, have announced they've had to pause the development of their spaceship colony roguelike Jumplight Odyssey "indefinitely" as the studio faces mass redundancies. Over 50% of staff have been affected, including the entire Jumplight Odyssey team, and part of their publishing and operations teams.

Armello developer League of Geeks has just announced that it's laying off 50% of its staff.