Media Molecule, developer of Dreams and LittleBigPlanet, plans to lay off between 15% and 20% of its employees, according to a new report.
Sports IllustratedGLHF says the studio held an internal meeting today and told employees that it plans to lay off about 20 of its 135 employees.
This news comes a month after Media Molecule ended support for Dreams, which was released in early access in April 2019 before officially launching in February 2020.
In an article published on the game’s official website earlier this year, the studio explained that it “has made the difficult decision to discontinue live support for Dreams after September 1, 2023 to shift our focus to an exciting new project.”
Players can still play, create, and share content in the game, but will not receive any further updates. Players now also have a 5GB storage limit for any new creations.
The layoffs at Media Molecule are the latest in a long line of mass layoffs happening in the gaming industry this year.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Telltale Games had laid off a number of employees, and that Team17 was planning “significant” job losses as part of the company’s restructuring. It was announced last month that Epic Games would be laying off 16% of its staff, or about 830 employees.
Earlier this year, Microsoft confirmed its plans to lay off nearly 10,000 employees, including some at Xbox and Bethesda.
CD Projekt Red also announced plans in July to lay off around 10% of its staff, with CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński stating that the company wants to have “more agile and more effective teams”.
Layoffs have also occurred recently at a number of other companies, including… lonliness, Riot GamesBlizzard, Crystal Dynamics, Bioware, and The Callisto Protocol studio Striking Distance.
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