UK Studio Kwalee Announces Layoffs to Make Room for New Hires | Push Square
UK studio and publisher Kwalee has revealed recent staff cuts were made to «reshape» the company's business around «significant growth opportunities.» The company has layed off approximately 10% of its workforce, around 40 people, in recent months. Despite that, Kwalee stressed it expects to grow its headcount (currently about 400) to somewhere between 410 and 420.
Word comes to us by way of Game Developer, which cites MobileGamer.biz's (sister-site to GamesIndustry.biz) sources. The cuts have been made in small numbers over the course of several months, with the majority taking place at the studio's UK HQ in Leamington Spa. A Kwalee spokesperson provided MobileGamer.biz with a statement that reads:
«We are reshaping our business and our team to best capture the significant growth opportunities that currently exist in the sector, including hiring for 20 new roles. Kwalee has the global scale, management expertise and security of funding, combined with a differentiated strategy to take advantage of organic and acquisitive growth opportunities.»
Kwalee's CEO is David Darling, one of two brothers who founded the legendary UK studio Codemasters in 1986, for which he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for «services to the computer games industry.» Kwalee has primarily focused on developing mobile games, but publishing console games is a sizeable part of its portfolio. Its next upcoming release on PS5 is The Precinct.
The extent remains unknown
Are you surprised to see such bold hiring/firing behaviour at this point, or does it seem about par for the course? Let us know in the comments section below.
Khayl Adam is Push Square's Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.
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