Telltale Games, makers of The Walking Dead adventure games and several other episodic series, laid off many of its developers today and may be shutting down according to messages on social media, a report by The Verge, and a Kotaku source with knowledge of the matter.
Carbine Studios, the developer of the massively multiplayer online game WildStar, is shutting down, Kotaku has learned. Fifty people will lose their jobs in the process, according to a person briefed on the shutdown. The game will also come to a close.
Mafia III developer Hangar 13 laid off a significant number of staff today, in yet another example of the video game industry’s brutal churn.
In 2013, Eve Online developer CCP Games introduced Eve: Valkyrie, one of the current crop of virtual reality hardware’s flagship titles. Today the company announced it is halting VR development, closing, selling and streamlining studios, letting go of “around 100" employees in the process.
Activision Publishing laid off a number of employees across several companies this week, Kotaku has learned. The publisher let go of staff at Infinity Ward, Beenox, and other internal studios as well as their corporate office, according to sources, despite saying yesterday that they had surpassed their revenue targets…
Turbine, the Boston-based studio behind games like Lord of the Rings Online, laid off a significant number of people today. “Turbine is transitioning into a free-to-play, mobile development studio, and as a result we are eliminating some positions,” said parent company Warner Bros. in a statement. “The Lord of the…
Nintendo confirmed to South Korean news site Gameple that they are not planning to pull out of the local market, and that the recent layoffs at their Korean branch were due to a restructuring decision made because of “the current business environment.” More details here.
Scribblenauts developer 5th Cell laid off 45 employees today, following layoffs last week, the studio told me. Contrary to tweets, creative director Jeremiah Slaczka said they’re not shutting down. Latest layoffs are due to WB cancelling a Scribblenauts mobile game. Remaining staff is “tiny,” said Slaczka.
Motiga, the developers behind cute-as-heck MOBA Gigantic, have announced “significant, temporary studio layoffs.” The company claims it’s in discussions with “promising investors,” but the money hasn’t come through yet. That doesn’t sound very good. Gigantic is still in a closed beta.
Video game development studio Red 5, best known as the company behind the online game Firefall, missed payroll last week and could not pay its staff on Christmas day, according to several people familiar with goings-on there.
About half of the studio behind Driveclub are getting laid off, according to Eurogamer. Created by veteran developers Evolution Studios, the PS4 exclusive racing game suffered an extremely rocky launch last year, but a series of updates improved Driveclub significantly.
Yesterday, the game development studio Daybreak went through massive layoffs, culling a large number of jobs in order to stay "profitable." That's just business as usual in the video game industry, where it seems like there's a new round of layoffs every single week.
Sega is firing some 300 people in their publishing division as they continue to shift away from consoles to focus more on smartphone and online PC games.
Around 320 employees at Nintendo of Europe will lose their jobs this week, the company confirmed to Kotaku today.
Here are five more stories of people involved in the painful job cuts that happen in the games business all the time. Four from people who were fired. One from someone who did the firing. We urge you to read their accounts.
Confiscated e-mails. Sinking ships. The looming feeling that layoffs are coming, and there's nothing you can do to save yourself.
On a May morning in Rhode Island two years ago, a reporter for the Providence Journal stood outside the doors of 38 Studios, the video game company formed by baseball player Curt Schilling.
Do you work in the video game industry? Want to talk (anonymously) about layoffs? Whether you're a developer sick of the job instability or a publisher who has had to let good people go, we want to chat. Hit me up.
Airtight Studios will be working with a few less hands on deck. The Seattle-based development studio behind upcoming ghost mystery game Murdered: Soul Suspect has issued a statement saying they've laid off 14 people, saying "this restructuring is part of the normal ebb and flow of game production." This news comes on…
