Both companies had to lay off at least 10% of their employees.

Let’s start with Discord. The social platform is laying off 170 people. That’s 17% of its workforce. The Verge reported on an internal memo they obtained, which revealed that several departments will have to let go of their stranded employees. “We’ve been growing quickly and expanding our workforce even faster, growing fivefold since 2020. As a result, we took on more projects and became less efficient in the way we operate. It became increasingly clear to us that we needed to sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization. This was the primary driver behind the decision to reduce the size of our workforce,” wrote Discord CEO Jason Citron, who added that affected employees will receive a severance package. This will include five months of pay and five months of benefits (such as health insurance) for those laid off, giving them enough time to find a new job.

And CTech reports that Playtika is also laying off a significant number of people. About 10% of the staff, about 400 people, will leave, but people working in Israel will not be affected. Over the past year, the company has had to make several decisions. For example, it suspended game development due to challenges in the mobile market, and then tried to acquire Rovio Entertainment, but the studio that developed Angry Bird was eventually acquired by SEGA. Then, in September, they acquired Innplay Labs, paying the Israeli studio $80 million up front, and the value they could end up paying could be as high as $300 million.

Just this week we heard from two more companies that are (again) resorting to layoffs. There’s Unity (they’ve been in the news more than once for layoffs), but you could also mention Twitch, which is owned by Amazon. We should be prepared to see a lot more news about layoffs this year. In vain, the gaming industry has grown too fast.

Source: Gamesindustry, Gamesindustry