Digital Bros - the parent company of 505 Games (known for publishing the early Cooking Mama games in Europe, as well as Terraria, Ghostrunner 2 and many more) - has announced plans to cut around 30% of its global workforce as a result of a new organizational review across both its publishing units and development studios. It expects that “the predominant portion [of reductions will be] concentrated within the studios.”
In a press release shared on the company’s website yesterday (November 14), Digital Bros explained that the gaming market has “evolved since the pandemic” and is now more “selective”, with many consumers once again focusing on playing “well established” intellectual properties. It wrote: “Digital Bros strategy has had to adapt to this new and evolving competitive scenario and will focus its efforts moving forward on the release of sequels and new versions of previously successful and established games, with a limited number of new larger budgets productions.”
However, “in order to prioritize high-quality and long-standing successful titles,” the company has had to re-evaluate the games it currently has in development, and is set to “review the organization structure accordingly to align with the evolving competitive environment in the medium to long-term to ensure maximum operational efficiency.”
It’s not currently known which of Digital Bros’ studios will be affected by this - as well as 505 Games, it also owns DR Studios (which worked on the mobile version of Terraria), Infinity Plus Two (which developed a number of Puzzle Quest games), and more.
This latest layoff news is the latest in a series of redundancies which have hit the games industry this year. Workforce cuts were announced at Ubisoft and Digital Extremes just last week, and this week, Amazon Games announced the closure of Game Growth and Crown Channel - over 180 roles will be affected.
As we get further into November, be sure to keep up with the latest and greatest Black Friday gaming deals - you can refer to our Black Friday video game deals hub for some brilliant bargains.
