Less than one month after Xbox spun off Double Fine Productions as an impartial studio, the developer has laid off 23 workers, a transfer it says was mandatory to make sure “the survival of our studio.”
“Our transition to becoming an independent company means becoming a size that we can sustain,” Double Fine mentioned in a message shared on Bluesky. “The people we are losing were all important. They all made an impact on our games and culture, and they will be missed.”
The layoffs at Double Fine are unhappy however not fully sudden. Xbox earned plaudits from some corners of fandom for permitting Double Fine to go impartial as a part of its July restructuring that noticed 3,200 people put out of work rather than closing it outright, but the reality is that without Microsoft backing, the sudden transition to independence for a studio famed for its offbeat, modestly selling games—especially given the current state of the industry—is fraught.
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Compulsion Games, the other studio Microsoft cut loose as an indie, put out the word that it needs work just one week later. Prior to the Xbox layoffs earlier this month, numerous Compulsion employees began looking for new jobs, presumably on the assumption that their positions at the studio would likely be lost.
It’s not known how many employees remain at Double Fine following the layoffs, but Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier said the studio had 90 employees previous to the cuts.