Surgeon Simulator Developer Bossa Studios Hit With Lay-Offs

ign.com:

Surgeon Simulator and Lost Skies developer Bossa Studios has become the latest affected by the sweeping lay-offs hitting the video game industry.

As revealed by GI.biz, the UK developer laid off almost one third of all staff as 19 employees lost their jobs, caused by what co-founder Henrique Olifiers called a "perfect storm of events". The lay-offs came at the end of 2023, with 40 employees remaining at the studio.

This "perfect storm" was, according to Olifiers, caused by the number of high profile triple-A games launching after September that took attention from smaller studios, increasing operational costs, and delayed funding decisions across the industry.

"Resulting from this blue moon situation, we had to make the difficult decision to reshape the studio to reflect the position we find ourselves in at the end of this year, focusing all our efforts now on Lost Skies," he said. "This means we find ourselves in the heartbreaking position of having to let roughly one third of the studio go — amongst them, some of our closest colleagues."

Olifiers pleaded for other studios to hire the laid off members where possible, though the entire video game industry is currently struggling with job losses.

Lay-offs in 2023 were among the worst in industry history, with myriad studios of all sizes affected. Dreams' Media Molecule, Cyberpunk 2077's CD Projekt Red, F1 Manager's Frontier Developments, and Assassin's Creed's Ubisoft all suffered lay-offs. Destiny 2 developer Bungie was also affected, causing a "soul crushing" atmosphere at the studio that IGN learned about in an investigative report.

Colossal companies like Embracer, who owns the likes of Borderlands developer Gearbox Software and Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics,