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Thunderful Games, the developers and publishers that make the colourful SteamWorld series of games, have announced a hefty number of layoffs at the company, with anywhere between 80-100 people losing their jobs. It’s part of a “restructuring” that’ll also see an unspecified number of game projects cancelled, said the company in a press release yesterday. As if this is not dispiriting enough, they also say it’s an intentional move that’ll see them making fewer games of their own and instead publishing more work by other developers.
It’s a “strategic move towards publishing games from external partners,” according to CEO Martin Walfisz, who says he has let 80-100 people go with “great regret”. It’s not clear from the release which departments were most affected in this recent wave of layoffs, but judging from the language of the announcement I’m guessing many were employed on the development side of things.
“Shifting focus to external publishing will reduce the Group’s fixed costs and allow for greater flexibility,” they say, “enabling faster, diverse game releases by leveraging external talent and resources in a balanced manner, while still retaining some internal development capacity.”
This isn’t the first time the company has seen layoffs this year. The first round of job losses came in January and saw 20 percent of the company’s staff laid off. But the company, one of the largest video games businesses in the world by revenue, said this was not enough.
“Whilst significant reductions in cost levels were achieved this year, revenue targets have not been met and the Group is still struggling with negative cash flow.”
That negative cash flow refers to the over-investment the company say they’ve made over the last few years. In May, Thunderful also sold off its distribution companies (they basically distributed Nintendo games in Nordic countries) to patch more holes in their leaky finances.
What this means for the SteamWorld series, I don’t know. SteamWorld Heist 2 was the latest of the studio’s games to come out, and – like all SteamWorld games I’ve played – it was thoroughly enjoyable. When the company say they’re keeping “some internal development capacity”, they may mean they’ll focus solely on the steampunky robot world, as regards their own projects. Whereas previously, the various studios now folded into Thunderful Development have made other games like Lost In Random, Wavetale, and The Gunk (those studios previously being known as Zoink and Image & Form).
Considering the habits of big games companies to take fewer and fewer risks in recent years, it’s possible they’re jettisoning these non-SteamWorld projects first. But that’s just my best guess. I’ve asked Thunderful to tell us more about which projects have been canned, and will let you know if we find out.