Earlier today, Gamefront had an anonymous source claiming PopCap Games, maker of the Plants vs. Zombies titles, had suffered a round of layoffs. Parent company Electronic Arts wouldn't comment on the source's number of 30 jobs lost, but did provide the site with a statement from PopCap GM and co-founder John Vechey confirming that some people had been let go:"The changes we made today at PopCap were painful and we're sorry to lose some of our friends and colleagues. But it was also necessary in order to stay on course with our future plans for mobile games, live services, and new IP. PopCap is a studio that made its name building great games that the world can fall in love with, and that's what we'll continue to do."This isn't the first time PopCap has suffered a reduction in headcount since it was purchased by EA in July 2011. Fifty employees were laid off from North American locations in August 2012, and the company's Dublin studio was closed a month later.
Another day, another gaming studio that's trimming the fat to move ahead with its latest business strategies. This time around, mobile developer TinyCo has announced that they will be laying off a handful of their employees to tighten up the reins as they forge ahead for their company's future. TinyCo found early success in the mobile games space around 2010 and 2011, with their hit simulation titles Tiny Chef and Tiny Monsters.Tech Crunch is reporting that TinyCo will be laying off 27 employees in total across their offices in San Francisco and Argentina. In a statement on the layoffs, TinyCo CEO Suleman Ali has said: "We've moved 10 steps forward on executing a specific strategy around how we build games and what games we build. To execute this strategy, we decided to consolidate game development out of our SF office and reduce our staff." Specific details about this new strategy and why it is resulting in the loss of so many employees have yet to be revealed, although Ali promises that additional news about a new game launch will be coming up in the near future."Despite receiving $18 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz back in 2011 for the funding of mobile game development, will early studios like TinyCo still be able to exist in today's fast-paced mobile game world alongside the likes of current gaming juggernauts such as Supercell, King, and Kabam? Tech Crunch notes that other successful mobile game developers in 2011 such as Pocket Gems and Storm8 have not been able to continue that same level of success today that they once held in the earlier days of mobile gaming.There is no word yet on whether or not TinyCo has plans to help relocate the 27 employees to other parts of the industry.
If teen idols like Justin Bieber have taught us anything, it's that a meteoric rise is often followed by an equally meteoric fall. Such appears to be the case with Zynga. Today the company confirmed that its latest round of layoffs will reduce their workforce by another 18% by August. That's 520 employees.
Update: An official statement has been released by Popcap, confirming layoffs and adding clarity to the situation. Text can be found in the body of the post.Say it ain't so, PopCap. The casual games giant behind notable franchises like Bejeweled, Peggle, and Plants vs Zombies may be gearing up for some layoffs in the near future - or so says the rumor mill on the internet.
You know the famous saying: life in the social games business is like a box of digital chocolate; you never know what you're going to get. Or when you're going to canned, as the case may be. In an unsettling development for one of the space's hottest companies, we're getting wind of big shakeups at the studio founded by industry legend and EA mastermind Trip Hawkins. We're talking multinational closures big.