The workforces of streaming platform Twitch and game engine developer Unity have been hit by massive layoffs this week.
Twitch has confirmed that around 500 people will lose their jobs, with CEO Dan Clancy writing in a blog post and internal emails that “Over the last year, we’ve been working to build a more sustainable business so that Twitch will be here for the long run and throughout the year we have cut costs and made many decisions to be more efficient. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, it has become clear that our organisation is still meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business.”
Since it was acquired by Amazon for $970 million in 2014, the company has failed to turn a profit at any point, despite being by far and away the biggest streaming platform for video games. This follows on from two rounds of layoffs that took place last year.
Elsewhere, Unity is cutting a whopping 25% of its total workforce with 1,800 employees being laid off as part of a “company reset”. That’s in addition to around 8% of the company being laid off last May, but comes off the back of botched attempts to change the business model of the core Unity Engine last autumn, which planned to charge for every install of a game and drew massive backlash from developers.
Unity backtracked and CEO John Riccitiello retired from the company in its wake, and it was seemingly a reactionary move as the company sought to rebalance the books. In November they warned that layoffs would be coming, but not to this scale, and there will be massive worries about Unity’s future because of this – they’ve also cancelled partnership with Weta FX late last year, having acquired the development side and original Weta Digital brand of the marquee visual effects company.
In a statement to The Verge, Unity said, “This decision was not taken lightly, and we extend our deepest gratitude to those affected for their dedication and contributions.”
It looks like 2024 means to carry on as 2023 ended, with mass layoffs across the games industry.
Our thoughts go to all those suddenly without work in the new year, and hope that as many of them as possible can find new work soon.
