Social Developer Sulake Laying Off 60 Employees - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 30 October 2012 / 6,845 Views
Social game developer Sulake is going to take Habbo Hotel back to its social networking roots. However that means the company will be laying off 60 employees.
"We are going to focus specifically on the features and services that makes finding new friends and sharing with old friends enjoyable," said Sulake CEO Paul Fontaine. "This means new features, fresh themed entertainment and a variety of games."
The 60 job cuts are coming from its Finland studio, according to a GigaOm report. To put this in perspective Sulake has 130 global employees. The layoffs have already started and are expected to take about six weeks.
"We have to become more lean and transition the business into what it's really good at," Fontaine told GigaOm. "That is, the friendship features inside Habbo and the moderation features for keeping it safe."
"We’re now able to give a really good launch platform for games and other entertainment applications," Fontaine added. "Last week we launched a game – one third of users of the site trialled the game on the weekend. When you can deliver that to a developer, that’s a great partnership. A small developer can launch on Habbo and be live in 12 countries and have global monetization capabilities right out of the box."
