Twitch and Unity lay off workers, while Rebels Wolves strengthens… Business News of the Week

Business news Twitch and Unity lay off workers, while Rebels Wolves strengthens… Business News of the Week

Twitch: New wave of layoffs, with 500 departures announced

We told you about the transition to 2024, at the end of the year will not mark the end of layoffs in video games and related technology fields. Still unprofitable after nearly a decade under Amazon’s tutelage, Twitch also suffered from post-Covid and service shutdowns in South Korea. In the past year, Twitch has already said “goodbye” to 400 people, and 2024 begins with a wave of 500 departures. First announced at Bloomberg, this wave was later confirmed by Dan Clancy. The CEO, who took over from Emmett Shear in March 2023, published a blog post in which he confirmed the firing, copied an email sent to employees and announced a live broadcast on January 11th.

I just wanted to send you a quick message to let you know that we have made the difficult decision to downsize our roster today. At this time, we are working to communicate with our employees and clearly explain how this affects everyone. (…) As you all know, we have worked hard over the past year to run our business as sustainably as possible. Unfortunately, we still have work to do to get our business in the right shape and I regret to announce that we are taking the painful step of reducing our workforce by just over 500 people at Twitch.
I know many of you are wondering why this is happening. Over the past year we’ve worked to build a more sustainable business so that Twitch is here for the long term, and throughout the year we’ve cut costs and made many decisions to be more efficient. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, it has become clear that our organization is still much larger than our company size requires. Last year, we paid out over $1 billion to streamers.

An email was then sent to the concerned employees Contains information regarding their severance pay, and how to arrange a meeting with their manager. Slack accounts were not deactivated immediately, to give the fired people time to say goodbye to their colleagues. Acquired in 2014 for $970 million Owned by Amazon, Twitch has posted record losses over the past two years.

Rebel wolves grow stronger as a family

On February 16, 2022, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz announced that he is starting his own studio, Rebel Wolves. If you don’t know who we’re talking about, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz was no less than the director of CD Projekt’s biggest hit of all time, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Surrounded by many ex-members of CD Project, Rebel Wolves very quickly He began work on his first game, Triple A Dark Fantasy Designed under Unreal Engine 5. Because of his aura, the CEO quickly secured funding from NetEase, who took the opportunity to buy a few shares in the very young studio.

Going to the studio page, you will no doubt recognize some names, present in the credits of The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077 or even Gwent and Thronebreaker. From now on, Rebel Wolves can count On Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, brother of and previously responsible for designing quests on The Witcher 2, The Witcher 3, The Witcher 3: Heart of Stone as well as The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine. He left the CD project in May 2021 Work at Riot Games, the studio in which he worked on the futuristic MMO. Now back in Poland, he joins his brother CEO As creative director.

We want to create a world that you want to explore and dive deep into to find stories that will help you connect with the characters. We want to provide an experience that allows room for different choices and experimentation when replaying. It will be my mission at Rebel Wolves to help create this experience with so many talented people, and I can’t wait for everyone to see what the team has been planning for some time now,” says Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz.

For now, the AAA game project is just entering in the pha phase. So we’ll have to be patient, but we’ve been promised some small tidbits during the year. For those curious, note that despite NetEase’s investment, Rebel Wolves maintain complete control Creative ownership and its new license.

Ekta will lay off around 1,800 people

The dynamics of 2023 continue in Unity, as the official document issued by the company About 1,800 layoffs by March 2024, which corresponds to 25% of the current workforce. The new wave of layoffs is part of a larger “reset” project announced for the company. The widely rejected “installation tax” affair led to the departure of John Ricciello, and Different from Weta Digital The movement continues:

(…) On January 8, 2024, Unity Software Inc. announced that it plans to eliminate approximately 1,800 employee positions, or approximately 25% of its current workforce, as part of its restructuring and refocusing on its core business, and positioning itself for profitable, long-term growth. At this time, Unity cannot reasonably estimate the costs and expenses associated with these reductions, which are expected to be incurred primarily during the first quarter of 2024. The costs will mainly relate to employee transition, severance pay and social benefits.

This new social plan has been added some othersWhich happened from 2022. Unity said goodbye to 200 employees in June 2022, 300 employees in January 2023, another 600 employees in May 2023, then 265 employees at the end of 2023. In 2022, despite the turnover of 1.4 billion dollars, Unity announced 920 million net loss. The new wave of layoffs apparently had a positive effect on the share price, which jumped 5%. Hence the market reacts favorably to the restructuring.

Briefly in the week’s business news

• Playstation recorded 123 million active users In December. The last recorded record was 112 million in December 2022.
• Despite a very complicated launch, a move toward free-to-play, and an absence from the media landscape, eFootball has amassed over 700 million downloads, according to Konami.
• Minecraft Legends is over. The servers are deserted and Mojang will not push fate. The next update, expected by the end of the month, will be the last. However all facilities will be accessible.
• Second Diner, the studio behind the creators of Marvel Snap, announced that it has raised $100 million. Suffice it to imagine the future, time interrupted by unity and the announcement of nouveau riche.
• Deep Rock Galactic has now sold 8 million units.