The Great Developer Massacre of 2023-2024 (and onwards?)

[Hero-of-Time]

More layoffs at Ubisoft.

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It's been a tough year for the games industry with multiple studio closures and layoffs, and now as we enter December, Ubisoft continues the trend.

As highlighted by Game File reporter Stephen Totilo, Ubisoft is shutting down its San Francisco production studio and Osaka, Japan office. It will also be "ramping down" its production team located in Sydney, Australia. The total employee cuts are expected to be around "277" people.

As part of this, Ubisoft is ending services for its free-to-play shooter XDefiant, with the servers for the game shutting down on 3rd June 2025. This particular game, led by Ubisoft San Francisco, launched earlier this year in May, and half of its team is now reportedly "moving to other projects" at Ubisoft.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Merry Christmas.

[Hero-of-Time]

And some more...

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In late October, digital media mainstay Ziff Davis made an offer to its staff. "Organic revenue," read an email to employees, had declined by 10 percent since 2021, necessitating cuts. Like others in the industry, the company proposed a series of voluntary buyouts to those who "may be ready to move on, explore new opportunities, or just take a break." In other words, layoffs, but employees get to choose whether to disembark the sinking ship now or potentially get thrown overboard later. The end result, as we've seen over the course of the past few weeks, is the same: Publications lose key people, and those remaining wind up spread increasingly thin.

Gaming-related properties that have been hit by Ziff's soft layoffs include IGN, GamesIndustry.biz, and Humble Bundle. In the former two cases, multiple employees have publicly announced their impending departures.

"Announcement time: next week is my last week at IGN," senior news editor Alex Stedman recently wrote on Instagram. "As for what's next for me, I'm honestly not sure yet! But what's become abundantly clear to me is that I really need a break. I'm beyond lucky to have been working consistently in entertainment journalism from the age of 20, but after 12 years largely in a news grind, I'm exhausted! And it's time to take a breather and consider my next moves."

"I'm leaving GamesIndustry.biz at the end of the month," GI.biz head Christopher Dring wrote last week. "It's been quite the 8-year journey. I love the industry, I love business media and I will be back in 2025, although what that will look like is to be worked out."

These are industry veterans – as opposed to more-easily-replaced up and comers – and they're not alone. At GI.biz, three staffers, including EIC James Batchelor, have announced that this is their final month, leaving one of the few influential trade publications in video games with a single full-time employee. A current IGN staff member who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss these matters publicly told Aftermath that while their site has not been "decimated," at least six people have accepted buyouts. As for Humble, exact numbers are unclear, but one current Ziff employee and one former Humble employee both told Aftermath that "a lot" of Humble staff have taken buyouts.

Remaining employees at Ziff-owned gaming properties aren't sure what the future holds.

"I think the big thing for me is they haven't really communicated plans as to how they're going to fill that work," the current IGN employee told Aftermath. "We're all just kind of at sea. Some of the folks leaving filled very essential roles. [Management has] also, as you've seen, fired two other folks in the last few months, and laid off three others earlier this year. And we've been on a hiring freeze for a bit. So as you can imagine we are strained."

 

[Helmsly]

Illphonic made some cuts last week too:

 

[Hero-of-Time]

13 minutes ago, Helmsly said:

Illphonic made some cuts last week too.

Shame. I had a blast playing Ghostbusters during the Halloween season.

[Julius]

Fantastic speech from, and award for, Amir Satvat at TGAs, where he speaks about the spat of industry layoffs:

Absolutely 180° from Keighley to go from "we'll just focus on the games" last year to this, perhaps succumbing to public pressure a bit, but still, kudos to him for the change in approach nonetheless; if that's what it takes for people like Amir to get a platform and a chance to speak up about what's happening, then so be it. 

[Julius]

Was having problems finding it before (doesn't seem to be up on the TGAs channel?) but Swen Vincke, founder and CEO of Larian who famously got played off after winning GOTY with BG3 last year, had a chills-inducing speech on the matter too:

The industry is seriously starting to speak up. I'm convinced this is why he was played off last year, he's too powerful otherwise. 

Edited December 13, 2024 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

On 12/13/2024 at 3:03 AM, Julius said:

Fantastic speech from, and award for, Amir Satvat at TGAs, where he speaks about the spat of industry layoffs:

 

Poor dude is now getting harassed over his message.

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Fellow members of the games industry, I need to share a harsh reality.

Over the past four days, I have received countless hateful messages targeting me personally, alongside hundreds more on YouTube and Twitter. People have made disturbing comments about my family - I am only not sharing those comments because they are disgusting, but I will share some other sample comments. My wife and me have been targeted with anti-Semitic slurs. Several videos mocked my comments suggesting I sounded autistic - riffing on it for their audience's amusement.

Why this wave of hate? Because at The Game Awards last week, it wasn't mentioned that I work at Tencent. That's it.

This omission has somehow fueled bizarre conspiracy theories - claims that I'm a "Tencent agent" or a "Tencent plant" exploiting our community, or that I'm responsible for job losses.

Here's some context:

I started this community at Amazon BEFORE I ever joined Tencent.

Our community has absolutely nothing to do with Tencent.

I didn't / don't work on mergers and acquisitions at Tencent or Amazon.

They simply didn't mention Tencent because it had nothing to do with this community and they wanted to focus on how we drove this ourselves.

I have no knowledge of anything happening (or not happening) with Ubisoft.

I've never signed a contract or personally been part of a deal that led to job losses in my career. In fact, in some instances, like at AWS, I put great effort into making sure hundreds of peoples' jobs were saved during moments of restructuring.

I've also been accused of creating "jail-worthy fraud" and mocked for "just making one spreadsheet people enter info into," usually by people who spent all of 8 seconds looking at our site with no understanding of the work we do or the impact we've had. We have 15 resources across 5 different resource homes and there is a lot of depth to our community, as any of you who have used it know.

This can happen to you too when you sacrifice over 2,000 hours of your time to help the industry - this is the "reward" for two years of service.

P.S. For those fixated on this - please get your antisemitic insults and threats straight. I am not Jewish, though my wife is. I appreciate the future attention to detail.

I did not want to say anything but there have been too many comments about my family, about my wife, about her religious background, and other things that are way over the line for me not to say anything.

If you care - about me, our community, or anyone facing this kind of harassment - I encourage you to speak up when you see it happening. Your voice matters. I am continuing to do my best to tune this out but it is quite extreme and I appreciate your allowing me to surface it.

This is the last I have to say on this matter and we will return to our mission of positive, public service. Thank you!

 

[Julius]

1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Poor dude is now getting harassed over his message.

Was just reading up on this, what a joke.

I'm not even surprised at this point. Elsewhere and tangential to TGAs, I saw ND were getting harassment and had to turn off comments on YouTube for the Intergalactic trailer for unfortunately obvious reasons. 

The only thing that makes knowing climate collapse is upon us even remotely sweet is that all of these braindead hateful bastards are going down with the rest of us. 

[Dcubed]

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3lfd5gjb7mk2x?ref_src=embed
 

Ubisoft are getting desperate.  Looks like Shadows really is gonna be their last roll of the dice…

Hope the PoP: TLC team manage to escape the sinking ship before it finishes drowning…

[CrowingJoe79]

At least an update on Silent Hill f has finally occurred. 

With how many companies go bust today, and with games going on the chopping block, this type of update, even if it's small, kind of relaxes your mind a bit.

 

[Julius]

185 let go from Ubisoft, with Ubisoft Leamington closing, and Dusseldorf, Stockholm and Reflections seeing cuts. 

Per VGC:

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The move will see the company close Ubisoft Leamington, which is based in Leamington Spa, England, and make cuts at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections.

Ubisoft Leamington was previously known as FreeStyleGames – the studio best known for the DJ Hero series – before it was acquired by Ubisoft from Activision in 2017. It has since worked mainly as a support studio on games such as Far Cry 5, Avatar, and Star Wars Outlaws.

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Ubisoft said in a statement provided to VGC: "As part of our ongoing efforts to prioritize projects and reduce costs that ensure long-term stability at Ubisoft, we have announced targeted restructurings at Ubisoft Düsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections and the permanent closure of Ubisoft Leamington site.

"Unfortunately, this should impact 185 employees overall. We are deeply grateful for their contributions and are committed to supporting them through this transition"

...and TIL Ubisoft bought the DJ Hero guys from Activision all the way back in 2017. And that they were only an hour's drive away from me in Leamington Spa. 

What an unfortunate time to learn that piece of information 

Edited January 27 by Julius

[Ashley]

2 hours ago, Julius said:

...and TIL Ubisoft bought the DJ Hero guys from Activision all the way back in 2017. And that they were only an hour's drive away from me in Leamington Spa. 

What an unfortunate time to learn that piece of information 

unless you want to go looting?

[CrowingJoe79]

I still hold out hope for a sequel to Days Gone. I also really think the game was one of the absolute best of the 2010s.

Call me a fool, but that game is awesome, and Sony are a bunch of ungrateful idiots.

[Cube]

That's if the developers even want to make a sequel, there's been nothing to indicate that they do, the only people that go on about it are the abusive managers who quit the studio because everyone hated their harassment. 

[Dcubed]

https://www.sumogroupltd.com/news/2025/sumo-group-update/
 

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For over 20 years, we have built an enviable reputation as a trusted and respected game developer working with the most prestigious partners in the world on their commercially and creatively successful games. More recently, we embraced opportunities to develop our own IP, taking on ambitious and creative projects that showcased the incredible talent of our teams. This journey has fostered remarkable creativity and innovation, and we are deeply proud of all we have achieved together.

However, as the industry evolves, we must balance our creative ambitions and the commercial realities to ensure the long-term stability and success of our business. After careful consideration, we have made the strategic decision to focus Sumo Digital exclusively on development services for partners - our core strength and the foundation of our success.

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Unavoidably this transition will have an impact on our studios and people. We are committed to minimising this impact as much as possible, exploring all options to retain talent, and supporting those affected with transparency, care, and compassion.

This will strengthen our position as a premium development partner, leveraging our expertise to contribute to and create great games for our clients. Whether collaborating on new or established games, co-developing games, providing specialist engineering, or porting services; we are confident in our teams' exceptional talent and our ability to thrive in this next chapter.

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While this is a difficult moment, this change has no impact on existing or future commitments with partners and provides a better platform for us to focus on our core strengths and return to a thriving business.

We appreciate your understanding and support as we navigate this transition.

Not good news… Sumo are back to being a purely work-for-hire developer now…

That Tencent influence at work folks!

Edited yesterday at 12:39 PM by Dcubed

[Dcubed]

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/iron-galaxy-lays-off-66-developers-in-last-resort-lifesaving-effort
 

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Developer Iron Galaxy has eliminated 66 positions across its development and support teams.

The studio, which created Rumbleverse and helped develop the recent Last of Us remasters, explained it's made "sacrifices" over the years to protect its teams from the layoff waves. But after this past winter, it's "run out of room" to weather the current industry tumult.

"This was a means of last resort for us," it wrote. "It's a measure we do not take lightly to enable our long-term survival."

Damn, that’s rough… Would’ve figured that they’d be a shoe-in to be an art-asset support studio for Metroid Prime 4 and that’d keep them going; but I guess not?