More Layoffs in the Games’ Industry and More (3/28/24)

After getting their hands on nearly every game studio they could, Embracer Group has been looking for ways to make some of their money back. The latest studio to get sold off is Gearbox Entertainment, most well known for the Borderlands game series. Unsurprisingly, the company purchasing Gearbox is none other than longtime Borderlands publisher, Take-Two Interactive. The sale is reported to cost Take-Two $460 million and consists of Gearbox Software, Gearbox Studio Quebec, Gearbox Montreal, and a number of game franchises including Borderlands, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, Risk of Rain, and Duke Nukem. After the sale, Embracer Group will retain Gearbox Publishing San Francisco, Cryptic Studios, Lost Boys Interactive, and Captured Dimensions.

Sega is in the news today for laying off 240 jobs across their UK studios, as well as selling off Relic Entertainment. The layoffs will come from Sega Europe, Creative Assembly, and Sega HARDlight. Sega Europe’s new head Jurgen Post stated they “need to streamline, focus on what we are good at, and position ourselves as best we can for the road ahead. In order to do that, we need to respond to the changing economic landscape and the challenges we’re facing in the way we develop our products and bring them to market”. Relic Entertainment will now become an independent game studio, thanks in part to external investors. Relic has informed fans that they will continue to support their titles, including a new update to Company of Heroes 3, which will come in April.

GameStop has announced on Tuesday that they will begin cutting jobs to help reduce costs. These cuts are not surprising, due to the rise in digital sales across all gaming platforms. GameStop has not announced the amount of staff that will be cut.

GameStop’s journalism branch, Game Informer has announced updates to their magazine’s subscription plan. For the longest time, the only way to subscribe to Game Informer has been to go to a physical GameStop location and sign up. That has changed as of this week. They now offer a one year subscription of 10 issues for $19.91, and a two year subscription of 20 issues for $34.99. Both subscription plans include access to digital and physical versions of the magazine. More information can be found on Game Informer’s website.

Toys for Bob, formerly under Activision and then Microsoft, has recently left the Microsoft umbrella, just to partner with Microsoft for an upcoming game (yes, you read that correctly!). The rumored game is a “fourth” installment of the Spyro the Dragon series. This will be a return to the series for Toys for Bob. The studio has previously worked on the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, as well as Crash Bandicoot 4. The project is reportedly in early development. We will cover future Spyro 4 news in the future.

Hot off the presses! ArenaNet has announced that Guild Wars 3 is in development. No other information is known about the game or when the studio plans on releasing the game. The second installment of the series has expansions in the works that are expected later this year and in 2025, so it is safe to assume that the third game is still over a year out.

CTLenz
https://linktr.ee/ctlenz