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Gi.Biz: Cloud Imperium reportedly hit with layoffs (Star Citizen Developer)

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Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?



Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games has reportedly laid off an unknown number of staff.

As reported by Game Developer, former employees have shared that they have been made redundant on LinkedIn, including level designer Dane Kubicka, Austin QA lead Vincent Sinatra and Austin senior QA analyst Andrew Rexroth.

Star Citizen's game director, Todd Papy, also left the company last week according to his LinkedIn profile.

Former producer Annie Bouffard shared on LinkedIn that she resigned from a "highly toxic company" having been gaslit when she "expressed concern about potential layoffs."

She claimed there were mass layoffs at Cloud Imperium at the end of January, which were "disguised" as a "relocation" to another office by the studio.

Bouffard alleged that her boss hadn't spoken to her since last November, and that during her annual evaluation she was "mocked in a condescending way when [she] said what mattered to [her] was the wellbeing of her teams."

GamesIndustry.biz has reached out to Cloud Imperium for further comment and clarification.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Any work in the industry? Every developer has some attrition when some are no longer needed as development winds down.

Aren't they in the polishing phase of S42? Think about what that could mean. Probably less hired help needed other than those who are optimizing. There were bound to be some layoffs. The word is nasty and gets attention since people like salacious headlines.

There could also be legit layoffs as well but they have S42 (polishing phase) and SC, there's some redundancy there which was never going to be permanent once the games stay winding down.
 

Ribi

Member
Lazy article it was a "hey you wanna move to Manchester if not sorry dude" this isn't layoffs it's fucking normal ass process. They hire more people than they fire.
 

NEbeast

Member
Is this because of acquisitions too?
Leonardo Dicaprio Reaction GIF by Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
She claimed there were mass layoffs at Cloud Imperium at the end of January, which were "disguised" as a "relocation" to another office by the studio.
If this is true, then it's more in line with the kind of fly-by-night shit that used to happen in the 2000s.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Lazy article it was a "hey you wanna move to Manchester if not sorry dude" this isn't layoffs it's fucking normal ass process. They hire more people than they fire.

When someone asks staff to move to a different city or country at short notice of face termination, that’s pretty much a clever way to downsize.
 
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Turbulent, as some say is most affected, numbered "more than 45 experts", CIG as of their buyout in 2023 had over 1100, even if the whole studio left it's a drop in the bucket (and nothing like PlayStation's 900) considering they still hire more/open studios (like the Manchester studio announced in 2021 that opened 700+ jobs there, rather than 45, I guess they want it as central HQ?). With one (1) report of the studio being toxic maybe it's part of trying to correct it, or relocation was always part of the merger deal the higher ups knew when they took the $. Hope the affected land on their feet.
turbulent.png

For UK devs, the Manchester studio is currently hiring for 26 positions, maybe to cover for those affected here. Going by some GAFers everyone should apply there to get paid a full wage to deliberately not do anything, maybe sleep on the clock and go indie/live off the clock while Chris gets rich🤷‍♂️
Don't worry, they'll be able to keep paying all the old and new staff for a while longer folks.
 
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FFS stop starting a thread every time a few people get laid off. This is getting out of hand at this point. Seriously, all for some BS thread recognition and activity 🤦‍♂️
 
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