Yooka-Laylee developers Playtonic announce layoffs: “the landscape is shifting, and with it, so must we
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Summary
Video game developers Playtonic are making redundancies across their operations due to changes in the industry.
While it is unclear what these changes are, some industry observers have pointed to rising game development costs, the popularity of different genres to that which Playtonic specialises in, or the shift to maintaining evergreen service games as potential causes.
The redundancies affect designers, producers, UI and narrative writers, all of whom have been thanked for their efforts and talents in a statement from Playtonic.
The company, formed of former Rare employees, released their first game in 2017 and a publishing division in 2021.
The latter garnered investment from Tencent, suggesting a minority stake in the company.
Industry-wide redundancies are becoming more common as publishers try to cope with the reduced demand that followed the boom period of 2020-21 when many people were locked down at home.
