We’re hardly into 2024 and we’re already getting some of the worst news on job cuts we’ve seen. On Monday, game engine company Unity suffered from around 1,800 layoffs, or about 25% of its staff.
This news was first reported by Reuters on Monday morning. The company shared the news via an internal memo and a regulatory filing. The filing reads as follows:
On January 8, 2024, Unity Software Inc. (“Unity” or the “Company”) announced that it plans to reduce approximately 1,800 employee roles, or approximately 25% of its current workforce, as it restructures and refocuses on its core business, and to position itself for long-term and profitable growth.
At this time, Unity cannot reasonably estimate the costs and charges in connection with this reduction, which it expects will be substantially incurred in the first quarter of 2024. The charges will primarily relate to employee transition, severance payments, and employee benefits.
Unity faced significant backlash last year when they made changes to their pricing and licensing structure. While they walked back a good number of their proposed alterations, they lost a lot of good faith within the game dev community. The company has clearly been trying to adjust their business for a while.
This is one of the larger waves of job cuts we’ve seen in the gaming industry thus far. The next largest incident we can recall in recent memory is over at Epic Games, which chopped nearly 900 jobs back in September. It’s frustrating and disappointing, and it never stops being demoralizing to see how common it is right now for people in the video game industry lose their livelihoods.
While Unity is one of the first gaming-adjacent companies to have layoffs in 2024, it’s highly unlikely to be the last. We’ll be sure to keep our readers up to date on layoffs and closures as the year progresses.
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