UK indie label Team17 is reportedly looking at laying off one-third of its staff.
02.10.2023 - 21:43 / gamespot.com / Tim Sweeney / Michael Pattison
The majority of the publisher's internal QA department has reportedly been let go.
By Cameron Koch on
Team17, the developer behind the Worms franchise as well as the publisher of indie games like Overcooked and Dredge, is estimated to have laid off around 50 employees. In addition, Team17 CEO Michael Pattison has left the company.
As reported by Eurogamer, around 50 roles, mostly in Team17's internal quality assurance department, have been let go after what has been described as a restructuring following a company-wide town hall meeting. According to Eurogamer, Team17 will instead be looking to outsource QA work for its games moving forward, with most of the positions being let go consisting of junior QA analysts.
In a statement to VG247, a Team17 spokesperson confirmed Eurogamer's report that Pattison was departing the company. Pattison worked as CEO for two years, having joined Team17 in October 2021 after having previously worked at PlayStation.
«In response to reports concerning the departure of Michael Pattison from Team17, we can confirm we have amicably parted ways with Michael,» a Team17 spokesperson said. «We can also confirm that we have sadly entered into a period of consultation today within Team17 Digital, with Astragon and Storytoys remaining unaffected by the restructuring plans.»
This isn't the first time Team17 has suffered layoffs this year. As Eurogamer also reported earlier this year, members of the publisher's art and design teams were let go back in March, but were allowed to apply for other positions within the company. Last year, Team17 walked back plans for Worms-themed NFTs after backlash from fans and development partners. Following the NFT backlash, Team17 employees spoke out about poor pay and working conditions at the publisher.
Team17 isn't the only video game company to have been hit by significant layoffs recently. Epic Games let go of more than 800 employees last week, about 16% of the Fortnite creator's workforce. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said the company had been «spending way more money than we earn» for «a while,» and concluded that layoffs were «the only way» to reach financial sustainability. Blizzard's Hearthstone team was also hit by layoffs, despite Blizzard revenue having increased 160% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2023 thanks to the record-breaking launch of Diablo IV.
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email [email protected]
UK indie label Team17 is reportedly looking at laying off one-third of its staff.
UK indie label Team17 is reportedly looking at laying off one-third of its staff.
Team17's restructuring could end with the publisher laying off one-third of its employees, according to Eurogamer.
Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is set to be called by Epic Games Inc. to testify in an antitrust trial over Google Play policies that could threaten billions of dollars in revenue generated by the app marketplace.
Four years after all but shutting up shop in 2018, Telltale Games are once again laying off staff. The company let "most" of its employees go in September, according to former staffer and cinematic artist Jonah Huang, who began posting about the situation on Xitter earlier in the week. Telltale have now confirmed aspects of Huang's story, while declining to specify how many jobs have been chopped.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has admitted the company was grappling with a "financial problem" 10 weeks before announcing sweeping layoffs, in an unexpected admission during Unreal Fest earlier this week.
In typically unguarded comments made on Tuesday at the start of Unreal Fest — a conference for users of its Unreal Engine software — Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney addressed the financial difficulties that led the company to lay off over 800 staff at the end of September. He mentioned that management only became aware of the seriousness of the situation 10 weeks ago.
Epic Games founder, CEO, and primary stakeholder Tim Sweeney took the stage at this year's Unreal Fest, hosted this week in New Orleans, to provide more context and details on the recent mass layoffs that affected the company. In a video grabbed by Fortnite creator and shared on Twitter (X), Sweeney admitted that even if the engineering teams were barely affected, there might be a degradation of quality in some of the future work. He also revealed when exactly Epic became aware that it had significant financial problems.
Last week, you may recall that Fortnite creator Epic Games made the news by announcing mass layoffs. Around 830 people lost their jobs that day, which makes up roughly 16 percent of the entire company's workforce. Epic justified the layoffs by admitting that the company had been "spending way more money than we earn" in trying to turn Fortnite into a "Metaverse-inspired ecosystem", claiming that revenue sharing with content creators doesn't make as much cash as when Fortnite originally took off.
The games industry is going through a time of troubles right now with multiple studios laying off their staff members recently, and it seems no one is really safe. Reports today show layoffs from Sony studio Naughty Dog, as well as at Twitch, while yesterday saw layoffs at Team17.
Epic Games' head of publishing strategy Sergiy Galyonkin has announced that he is leaving the company after eight years.
Staff at UK publisher Team17 are facing the prospect of layoffs as the company undergoes a restructuring.