Yup, it’s another layoffs story.<\/p>\n
Word is spreading today that Big Fish Games is laying off roughly 15 percent of its workforce, including a number of\u00a0executives, as it moves to focus on its free-to-play moneymakers.<\/p>\n
Notably, the team at GeekWire\u00a0claim to have a copy of an internal memo<\/a> in which\u00a0company president Jeff Karp\u00a0(who joined recently<\/a> after stints at places like Sports Illustrated and Zynga)\u00a0claims Big Fish will take most of that 15 percent out of its “premium business” as it moves to focus primarily on free-to-play games in the “social casino” and “casual” genres.<\/p>\n (It’s worth pointing out that earlier this year a federal appeals court ruled\u00a0one of Big Fish Games’ social casino games,\u00a0Big Fish Casino<\/em>, constituted illegal gambling under Washington State law<\/a>.)<\/p>\n “We are sharpening our focus to only develop social casino and casual games \u2014 genres where we have earned the right to lead the market,” Karp reportedly wrote. “While our journey is not always an easy one \u2014 and today was certainly among the most difficult \u2014 I\u2019m confident we are starting tomorrow in a position of strength and with a clear path forward to greater success.”<\/p>\n It’s rough news for the game dev community, especially after last week’s one-two punch of\u00a0Capcom Vancouver<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Telltale Games<\/a>\u00a0effectively shutting down — though in Telltale’s case, a skeleton crew remains on hand to finish out some remaining work (and at least one ex-employee is filing a class action lawsuit<\/a>).<\/p>\n GeekWire estimates that 15 percent of Big Fish Games would be roughly 95-100 people, and a recent Twitter update<\/a> from a Big Fish staffer\u00a0says 110 jobs were lost; add that to the ~158 people who lost their jobs when Capcom Vancouver was closed, and the ~250 people that were abruptly fired from Telltale (without severance), and you have an estimated\u00a0500+ game industry jobs lost in the span of a week.<\/p>\n