More than 300 game developers lost their jobs in one day, just three weeks before Christmas
It's another miserable day for the videogame industry, as the past 24 hours have seen hundreds of people put out of work at Ubisoft, Torn Banner, and Sweet Bandits.
In terms of raw numbers, the Ubisoft layoffs are the deepest cuts. The decision to end development of the free-to-play shooter XDefiant, coming less than three months after executive producer Mark Rubin insisted «the game is absolutely not dying,» means the closure of Ubisoft's San Francisco and Osaka studios (although Ubisoft's San Francisco business office remains open), and a «ramp down» of the company's studio in Sydney. A total of 277 people are expected to lose their jobs: 143 from the San Francisco studio, and another 134 «likely to depart» from Osaka and Sydney.
Sweet Bandits, the developer of vintage spycraft extraction shooter Deceive Inc, has closed outright. «There is no easy way to say this: The Sweet Bandits team is no more,» the studio announced in a message on the Deceive Inc forums. «After a long and difficult road of trying to get Deceive inc. in a state where it could thrive, we have reached the breaking point for the studio, unable to continue this adventure with you.»
Sweet Bandits said it is «considering options» for the future of the game, which will be handled by publisher Tripwire Interactive, and for now the servers will continue uninterrupted. The number of people now heading into the holiday season without jobs wasn't revealed, but the studio's website says it had 18 employees.
It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce the closure of Sweet Bandits.Please read more information below.https://t.co/tVJF2N2rXsDecember 3, 2024
Torn Banner Studios, best known as the developer of the Chivalry games, also made «the very difficult decision to undergo a restructure and reduce some of our talented workforce,» CEO Steve Piggot said in a message posted to LinkedIn. Piggot didn't say how many people were let go, but senior 3D artist Andrew Waddingham said "many" employees were put
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