Social Games Developer Vostu Lays Off Around 100 Employees - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 12 March 2013 / 3,471 Views
Vostu, the social games developer, has laid off about 100 of its employees, according to the TechCrunch. This is more than half of the total workforce. There are between 50 and 70 employees left at the studio. This is only 10 percent of the number of employees a couple of years ago.
The Brazilian-based company is just a fraction of its former self. The developer received $46 million funding from investors and grew to about 580 employees across its Sao Paulo, Beunos Aires and New York studios.
“Essentially, Vostu was unable to take risks and that brought the company down,” said one source.
Vostu was once considered the Zynga of South America as the biggest developer for the social website Orkut. It was once more popular than Facebook in South America, but its popularity has shrunk as Facebook has grown. Vostu has focused on games for Facebook, but fierce competition has limited their games to just 2.3 million monthly active users across its 25 apps. This is only one percent of the number of users who play Zynga's games.
