Report: Over half of Scavengers Studio laid off

gamesindustry.biz:

Season developer Scavengers has gone through "massive layoffs," according to former staff.

Scavengers 3D artist Mathieu Sauve Leroux shared on Linkedin that he was made redundant alongside "most of [his] colleagues" on June 21. Other Scavengers employees have reposted Leroux's message, shared posts of their own, or changed their Linkedin status to "open to work."

According to French games journalist and streamer Gauthier 'Gautoz' Andres, over half of the studio was laid off, he said on Twitter. Scavengers employed around 40 people.

He added that the studio's debut title, Season: A Letter to the Future, sold 60,000 copies since its launch in January which was "too little for the studio to recoup its costs."

GamesIndustry.biz has reached out to Scavengers Studio for more information.

In 2021, GamesIndustry.biz spoke to nine employees of the Montreal-based studio, who described a company tainted by a toxic work environment fostered by the studio's co-founders: creative director Simon Darveau and CEO Amélie Lamarche.

Darveau was indefinitely suspended in the wake of our report as an external firm audited the studio. The result of the investigation was shared later that year with Solertia Consulting Group absolving the company on some of the allegations but faulting the studio for lack of communication, among others.

Lamarche, who had temporarily stepped down as CEO, was reinstated, and so was Darveau but in "a smaller, non-managerial role, prototyping a research and development project."

Darveau left Scavengers Studios in March 2023, according to his Linkedin profile and as pointed out by Andres, to become creative director at an undisclosed new studio.

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