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Deck Nine Games has announced significant layoffs on Twitter / X.

Deck Nine Games, the studio most known for its work on Life is Strange and Telltale’s The Expanse, will undergo another round of layoffs, with around 20% of staff expected to lose their jobs. The news was announced on Twitter / X in a post lamenting the current state of the games industry, and the overall downturn in the market.

“Like many others in the games industry right now, Deck Nine has been affected by the games industry’s worsening market conditions,” the studio said. “Today we made the difficult decision to lay off 20% of our staff.”

“These people are amazing, talented, and awesome developers. They have made a huge impact during their time at Deck Nine Games and we did not take this decision lightly. Please hire these people if you can, they’re amazing.”

At this stage, there is no indication of the number of job losses, however, it’s likely work at the studio will be significantly impacted by these changes. This round of layoffs is the second to hit Deck Nine in recent months, with around 30 staff made redundant in a May 2023 layoff round.

According to Stephan Frost, game director at Deck Nine, the newly-announced layoffs were a last resort, with studio management trying a number of tactics to avoid cutting staff.

“Leadership took paycuts to keep the number down as much as possible,” Frost said on Twitter / X. “This is the strongest team D9 has ever been and it absolutely sucks that the industry is in the state that it is presently.”

In its announcement post, Deck Nine did not specify the conditions which inspired the company layoffs, however, other companies which recently initiated layoffs and production shutdowns have indicated there is currently a global stall in publishing and investment opportunities for game developers of all sizes.

In other unfortunate layoff news, Sony has become the latest major organisation to initiate widespread layoffs amongst its staff, with around 900 PlayStation studio employees expected to lose their jobs in the coming weeks.

Our thoughts are with those impacted by the layoffs at Sony and Deck Nine games.

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By Leah J. Williams 28 Feb 2024

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