Sumo Group closes Timbre Games amid plans to cut 15% of staff

thesixthaxis.com:

Sumo Group has announced it is reducing its global workforce by 15%, which equates to 250 people, and the first studio that has been impacted is Timbre Games. Staff of Timbre Games took to social media to confirm they had been told the studio would be closed, with Sumo Group confirming the news to GameIndustry.biz.

In a statement yesterday, Sumo Group confirmed the plans to layoff staff across its operations. The statement said, “Every day the incredibly talented people across Sumo studios are dedicated to creating great games and bringing ground-breaking experiences to players worldwide. That work and dedication over the past 21 years has helped to put Sumo on the map and build a family of studios that are second to none, and we are incredibly proud of what Sumo has become.

Whilst Sumo has been able to manage through many of the recent difficulties the games industry has faced, we have not been immune and reshaping operations across the business to better navigate the upcoming challenges expected in the coming months is a path we must now take to ensure the security of the business going forward.

The difficult decision to reduce our costs across the business in a number of ways is a direct result of these challenges, and unfortunately will include a reduction in the number of people the business can support. Every alternate route to limit the impact to our people is being considered but sadly this process of transformation will affect up to 15% of our people across the Group in Canada, UK, Poland, Czech Republic and India.

This is an incredibly challenging process to go through for everyone at Sumo and our focus is now on supporting our people and working with our partners on their games as we move forward to ensure we emerge from this difficult time, ready for the future.”

Sumo Group was acquired by Tencent for a sum of $1.3 billion.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz