Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios is having to trim their staff by 77 people in the face of two lost publishing contracts over the past year, worth an estimated $34 million. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Avalanche CEO Christofer Sundberg explains how the layoffs came about.
"We lost the first deal in February but we could survive that one because we had a shortage of staff in other projects and we decided to put together a team to work on a original IP that we had in development. But the team that were working on a project that was terminated last week – there were about 67 people on that team."
Undeterred by such setbacks, Sundberg goes on to state that the trimmed staff has resulted in a stronger focus on their remaining titles, Just Cause 2 for Eidos and The Hunter with Emote Games. They're also in discussions with different publishers regarding a new project, so the layoffs certainly aren't affecting the company's ambition. Good for them. Avalanche prepares to lay off 77 staff [GamesIndustry.biz]