While 2024 has just started it appears to be a continuation of 2023 in the loss of many gaming industry jobs, especially under Embracer’s leaky umbrella.
We now learn that another studio has let go of several of its developers, Lost Boys Interactive.
Lost Boys was acquired in 2022 by Gearbox Software after it was itself acquired by Embrcer Group in 2021.
Lost Boys Interactive has 400+ employees mentioned on its official site, so it’s certainly not a small company despite the fact that it has operated behind the scenes supporting other studios on their games.
One of their latest endeavors was helping Gearbox with the development of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands (of which you can read our review), but its long list of partners included Blizzard Entertainment, 2K Games, Visual Concepts, Amazon Games, PUBG Corporation, and ZeniMax Online Studios.
The studio is self-described as a remote-first one, with many of its positions off-site.
The layoffs were reported by multiple employees who have lost their jobs, including producer Jared L. Pace and designer Dylan Hendren.
At the moment, we don’t know exactly how many employees have been laid off.
In May 2023, Embracer announced that a “groundbreaking” strategic partnership had failed to go through before it could be signed and almost immediately started downsizing its studios, with plenty of layoffs and even full closures.
Plenty of relevant names have been affected including Volition, Cryptic Studios, New World Interactive, Free Radical, and 3D Realms/Slipgate Ironworks.
This deplorable situation has been going on for several months, with the bloated group apparently doing whatever it can to cut as many jobs as possible to limit its production costs.
At the moment, we don’t know whether the layoffs at Lost Boys Interactive will be the end of it, or if more will come. We can only hope that this will stop sooner rather than later,
