We didn’t have to wait long for the flood of bad news to begin, as two studios have been hit with layoffs in the space of a week.
Earlier this week, we reported that Splash Damage had canceled Transformers: Reactivate (which was leaked) and was looking to cut staff as a result. Now here’s the first news with concrete numbers on how many people will lose their jobs. Enad Global 7 has announced that it will lay off 38 people from one of its studios, Piranha Games, and close another studio, EvilVEvil developer Toadman…
Piranha Games’ reason for the layoffs is the usual: their latest game didn’t do as well as the publisher expected. They created Mechwarrior 5: Clans, and Enad Global 7 said it underperformed. This is no coincidence: the Steam player numbers have never been very good, as the number of concurrent players never went over 5,600 according to SteamDB, which is not much more than Mechwarrior Online, which was released ten years ago…
“The team at Piranha truly delivered a high quality game that exceeded both internal and external expectations in terms of quality, story and gameplay. Despite the phenomenal work of the team at Piranha, the game failed to reach new audiences and expand its core audience as expected, and therefore did not meet the necessary sales targets, forcing us to take the necessary actions,” said Enad Global 7 CEO Ji Ham.
After the layoffs, Enad Global 7 says it can continue to turn a profit while creating new content for Mechwarrior 5: Clan. Toadman, on the other hand, is being shut down after several attempts to turn it into a profitable company failed. According to the publisher, this is due to ongoing challenges in the industry and the studio’s inability to hire at the right pace. As a result, 69 employees and contractors will lose their jobs, although 42 will continue to work on existing projects until they are completed.
Toadman’s game EvilVEvil on Steam took such a huge hit that the number of concurrent players was at best 37…
Source: PCGamer
