People Can Fly has revealed plans to reduce their game output, and subsequently lay off 120 employees.
The studio’s CEO, Sebastian Wojciechowski, shared this message on the company’s official website:
“Today, we made a very difficult decision to reduce our self-publishing strategy by suspending Project Victoria, scaling down our team on Project Bifrost and restructuring some of our supporting teams at People Can Fly.
We are deeply saddened by the fact that this situation means suspending or parting ways with more than 120 talented Aviators, colleagues who we enjoyed having as part of our team.
This action became necessary as external market pressures persisted beyond our forecasts. The video game market is still evolving, and we have to adjust with where things are today. We are redoubling our efforts with new work for hire engagements and focusing on the development of a single independent game.
We believe in our teams, games and their potential, and we remain extremely committed to continuing that journey, but we need to tailor our plans to our financial capacity.”
People Can Fly decided to start work on Project Victoria and Project Bifrost two years ago, in light of the business failure of their live service project with Square Enix, Outriders. Both were to be self-published titles, and neither have been officially revealed to the public yet. But this is only a snapshot of the bigger picture.
Earlier this year, People Can Fly already laid off 30 employees, and reallocated 20 others to other projects, after deciding to reduce the scope of Project Gemini. Project Gemini was to be a big at the same scale as Outriders, and would have also been owned and published by the studio.
And then last April, they cancelled Project Dagger. This game was initially funded and to be published by Take-Two Interactive. When Take-Two pulled that funding, People Can Fly failed to find another publisher to take over. This time, they did not announce any subsequent layoffs.
But it’s now clear that People Can Fly only delayed then what would come to pass today. With two games reduced to become smaller titles, and two games no longer in development, the company doesn’t need as many employees as they have now.
But then, this may create a misleading picture of the situation. As Wojciechowski explained, it’s not that they decided to cancel projects first, and then lay off people after. People Can Fly itself is not making enough money to keep the employees that they have, and these cuts are necessary, to avoid the worst possible alternative – for People Can Fly to shut down, with no one having a possible lifeline.
We must also acknowledge how harsh it is to do these layoffs at this time of the year. Certainly, it may have been better for these employees if they were put in a position to find new opportunities in the middle of the year instead of the holidays.
We wish the exiting members of People Can Fly the best, and hope they can find placement back in the game industry.
