author: Michal Harat
Wave of Industry Layoffs Continues; One-third of Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread Devs Lost Their Jobs
British developer Bossa Studios, responsible for Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread, among others, reported that the company had experienced layoffs at the end of 2023. Nineteen people lost their jobs.
In 2023, the gamedev world was hit by a veritable plague of layoffs. There probably wasn't a month in which we didn't write about more studios closing or planned cost streamlining related to job cuts. Piers Harding-Rolls - a well-known industry analyst - even stated that he couldn't remember encountering anything similar in his 20-year career. In addition, in his opinion (and not only his) in 2024, unfortunately, not much will change in this regard (via GamesIndustry.biz).
Layoffs at Bossa Studios
Just yesterday morning we wrote about Codemasters and the "organizational changes", which have recently been carried out in its ranks, and today we report on further layoffs. On GamesIndustry.biz the co-founder of Bossa Studios (known for, e.g. Surgeon Simulator), Henrique Olifiers, revealed that at the end of 2023, 19 employees had lost their jobs. The developer's upcoming game, Lost Skies, is now being developed by a team of 40 members.
According to Olifiers, this decision was prompted by, among other things, a floof of AAA games that turned players' attention away from indie and AA games. He added that, in the long run, this entailed increased operating costs for small studios and delays in the release of new titles. Olifiers called this phenomenon "a difficult situation that we developers are trying to survive," then elaborated on the topic as follows:
"As a result of this unusual situation, we had to make the difficult decision to remodel the studio (...), now focusing all our efforts on Lost Skies. This means that we found ourselves in the heartrending position of having to lay off about a third of the team - including some of our closest colleagues."
There's no denying that the tone of this statement is very different from those issued by industry giants in similar circumstances. Notably, Bossa Studios' co-founder even asked for support for his former employees, addressing his industry colleagues as follows:
"Although we are doing everything we can to support them (the laid-off employees - ed. note), we would appreciate any help from our industry colleagues in spreading the word about these great people - and even better if they would hire them for their teams. It will be hard to find a better game development professional than any of these 'Bossians.'"
An estimated 10,000 people in the industry lost their jobs in 2023. If you would like to learn more about this, I encourage you to read Farhan Noor's report.