More from The tech industry’s layoffs and hiring freezes: all of the news
Some staffers at Lost Boys Interactive, a studio that has worked on games like Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands and Diablo IV, have been laid off, as reported by Aftermath.
One former producer said on LinkedIn that the layoffs affected a “sizable portion” of Lost Boys Interactive; Aftermath says the company had employed more than 400 people. We spotted a Washington State WARN Act notice that says 125 workers are affected companywide.
Reports from Business Insider and The Information say the impacted employees were technical program managers at Instagram. They will reportedly have until March to apply for a new role within the company.
Meta made cuts across the company last year, but it seems job cuts are continuing into 2024. Google, Discord, Twitch, and Unity all announced layoffs this month, too.
After laying off hundreds of employees at Twitch and Prime Video, Amazon is cutting staff at its audiobook and podcast platform, Audible. According to a memo obtained by Business Insider, Audible CEO Bob Corrigan said that the cuts were made “to position us for continued success in the coming year and into the future” and it’s really not worth finishing the quote, because you know the drill by now. Variety reports that the cuts will include more than 100 staffers, but will not impact the content teams.
It’s not clear exactly how many Amazon Prime Video and MGM Studios workers are being fired just ten days into the new year, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, the layoffs are coming, and the number in the hundreds.
In a statement about the firings, division head Mike Hopkins described the move as being meant to increase “our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact.”
The Amazon-owned game streaming platform could lay off around 500 workers as soon as Wednesday, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Twitch laid off dozens of workers as part of Amazon’s company-wide cuts last year, and it recently shut down its service in South Korea due to “prohibitively expensive” costs.
It’s not just that you’re more likely to come across cowboy boots in those places. They’re also increasingly home to technology workers as demand for their skills comes from more companies in more industries in more cities.
The Wall Street Journal hits that and other factors leading to the shrinkage — both in percentage and absolute figures — of the tech workforce in former strongholds of the industry like the Bay Area and New York City.
The devastation of 2023’s great video game layoff continues. Today, Versus Evil, a publisher focusing on indie games including The Banner Saga and Pillars of Eternity II, announced that it’s closing — days before the Christmas holidays.
Lance James, head of production at Versus Evil, wrote that the closure “wasn’t a Versus Evil decision or choice” meaning the decision was likely handed down from parent company and Hello Neighbor publisher tinyBuild. Earlier this month, tinyBuild reported impending layoffs in the face of what it called an “incredibly challenging year.” It also received a $2 million dollars investment from Atari just yesterday.
In a memo obtained by CNBC, Etsy CEO Josh Silverman told employees that the handmade marketplace is laying off 11 percent of workers. Silverman cites a “challenging macro and competitive environment,” adding that gross merchandise sales “has remained essentially flat since 2021.”
Google reportedly laid off between 40 and 45 employees in its news division this week. CNBC reported the layoff, citing an Alphabet Workers Union spokesperson and a confirmation from Google itself.
According to CNBC, the Google spokesperson said the team still employs hundreds of people. The job cuts are part of an ongoing trend in the tech world, including larger layoffs at Google earlier this year.
Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm has become the latest tech giant to conduct layoffs, eliminating 1,258 positions in its San Diego and Santa Clara offices, roughly 2.5 percent of its global workforce.
The layoffs were foreshadowed in the company’s last earnings report, where it blamed “the continued uncertainty in the macroeconomic and demand environment.” The cuts are expected to take place in mid-December and primarily affect engineers.
As reported by Polygon’s Nicole Carpenter, Telltale says it let “some” of its team go “due to current market conditions,” though all games in development are “still in production.”
Earlier on Thursday, a person who says they used to work at Telltale claimed the company laid “most of us off” in early September.
Update October 5th, 8:52PM ET: I reached out to Telltale to try and get details about how many were laid off, but Telltale spokesperson Elizabeth Olson declined to share that.
The job cuts hit Twitch’s customer experience organization, according to GamesIndustry.biz. Amazon cut “just over” 400 jobs at Twitch earlier this year. Zach Bussey, who covers Twitch closely, says Tuesday’s cuts are “significantly smaller” than that round of layoffs.
[GamesIndustry.biz]
