Wait, do Asha plan to shut XBOX down or what? (the shot from The Verge)

#XBOX@GameDEV
#Microsoft@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

Let me guess, starts with Micro ends with soft? (via)

#IOInteractive@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

• 1600 jobs are gone today
• 1600 more will follow soon
• Ninja Theory is sold (Senua)
• Undead Labs sold (State of Decay)
• Double Fine goes indie
• Compulsion Games goes indie
• Some of their IPs will be shared
• France blocked Arkane closure
• It is under "consultation" = soon
• More studios will be closed too
• Major cuts across XBOX
• Big cuts in ZeniMax (Bethesda)

• King and Mojang report directly to Asha now (the biggest cash cows)

#XBOX@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

We are halfway through 2026

#LayOffs@GameDEV

And somehow they still have to make more Doom games with half of the team 🫡

#XBOX@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

Imagine bringing a commercial success to your company only to be fired right away 😑

#Ubisoft@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

Somewhat fewer bits left (via)

#LayOffs@GameDEV

1047 Games, the studio behind Splitgate and Empulse is firing a significant but undisclosed amount of people (again).

They already laid off 45 people (28% of staff) last year when Splitgate 2 failed commercially. Now Empulse ("inspired by Titanfall") found no players and therefore no revenue to keep the company up.

#LayOffs@GameDEV
#Multiplayer@GameDEV

A logo of the strike from the Ubisoft Barcelona union: this office developed all underwater missions of the Black Flag remake and then 50 of them were fired.

#Ubisoft@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

ZA/UM fired over 30 people due to commercial failure of their recent game Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. The feedback was positive but the sales are far from Disco Elysium.

A lot of the original fans were suspicious due to legal battles over the studio and weren't rushing to buy a new project upon release. But the game sold at least 50 000 copies for $40 in less than three months = $1.5-2m gross revenue. What numbers did they expect?

#LayOffs@GameDEV

The studio behind a fairly good boomer horror shooter Crisol apparently closed a few months after the release 😑

The game was affordable, reception is good, but sales are still mediocre. Sadly, I haven't even heard of this game before.

According to the ex-employee, the studio is long gone but the publisher is still doing some minimal social media support, so a lot of people mistakenly addressed questions to him and his colleagues.

#Horror@GameDEV
#IndieGames@GameDEV
#Blumhouse@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

The last game of Warren Spector (the father of immersive sim genre) will not get content updates and instead will become Peer-2-Peer to avoid servers.

The studio fired over 35 people, less than 10 of employees remain in the office, and their destiny is also fairly unpredictable. So the team want the game to remain accessible regardless of the outcome.

#ImmersiveSim@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

FIFA used to make billions on EA, then asked to triple the licensing fee. EA refused and is still making the most successful football game under EA FC brand.

In the meantime, FIFA promised a huge diversity, making NFT scam, Netflix exclusives, and such. The Netflix game failed so hard that the team behind it was laid off. And Refactor Games has been effectively shut down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJXNLoqxBK4
#LayOffs@GameDEV
#Sports@GameDEV

It didn't take long... (via)

#EA@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

So, Directive 8020 didn't work out, dozens of developers will lose their jobs... (via)

#LayOffs@GameDEV

Crytek fired dozens more yet again (mostly among QA) and in this case I'm not surprised: they are independent and their last full release is Hunt Showdown (2018). Last collaboration Crysis Remastered (2020-21), but Saber Interactive took the big cut.

It's 2026, Crysis 4 is shelved and no games are officially in production. Their own engine has been only used for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.

#Crytek@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

If Don't Nod will not find funding (after Tencent abandoned them), they will become insolvent in January of 2027. Most likely only a shell will exist to operate previous games.

They already let people go recently which helped to get a few extra months (previously they estimated the end date as November of 2026).

Vampyr, Banishers, Jusant, Lost Records, and Aphelion failed commercially. Overall the first signs of the downfall appeared back in 2024 when they halted public trading via request to the EU financial commission.

Unlike Crytek above, DN always kept making games from small indie projects to huge worlds like Banishers. They also kept pushing industry forward with the first PBR game (Remember me) up to the unique lighting in Jusant.

#DontNod@GameDEV
#Tencent@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

Well, yeah, to no one's surprise... kind reminder that the game barely runs even after all the patches, and the intro section is the hideous un-skippable 30 minutes cutscene.

#LayOffs@GameDEV

Heart Machine lost funding and has been dismantled. Almost all of the employees are fired. It's not clear who was that publisher that left the deal.

Possessor(s) was the only game I played from them and it was comically bad in terms of optimization — a 2.5D stylized game that runs worse than Hogwarts Legacy. All thanks to Unreal Engine 5! Because of that issue, they've had to lower the price drastically (to $9.99) after the release.

Already warned you about it: https://xn--r1a.website/GameDEV/10600 — absolutely deserved failure. Oh, and Zoë Quinn was working with them for a few years.

#LayOffs@GameDEV

1348 Ex Voto and Caravan SandWitch publisher Dear Villagers lays off most of their staff. The teams of both games got fame for attacking people on social media who dared to disagree with their far left views.

Caravan Sandwitch sold well for the price, 1348 Ex Voto failed miserably. But overall strategy of being a publisher in Western Europe is not reliable recently.

#LayOffs@GameDEV