Glu Mobile Lays Off 12 Percent of Staff - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 May 2013 / 3,444 Views
Glu Mobile, the mobile publisher, has confirmed that it is laying off 68 of its employees. The publisher is in a transition period to a games-as-a-service company. According to Twitter jobs have been cut at Griptonite Games in Kirkland, Beijing and San Francisco.
"We believe concentrating resources on fewer titles, with a greater centralized support infrastructure will accelerate revenue growth in Q4 2013 and beyond," said Glu Mobile CEO Niccolo de Masi in a statement to IGN. "We made over 20 new ‘games-as-a-service’ (GaaS) hires in Q1 and anticipate hiring at a similar rate throughout the year."
"Our goal is to shift headcount investment out of raw studio team volume and into our centralized GaaS functions. This rebalancing is expected to leave R&D costs approximately flat year over year. A reduction in force was commenced today to promote talent density throughout the studio, as well as fund over 80 new GaaS colleagues."
"This reduction is equivalent to circa 12% of the year’s starting headcount of 564 employees. Adding back forecast hiring we anticipate finishing 2013 with 582 Gluers worldwide."
In November of last year closed its Brazil studio and laid off some of its employees at its Kirkland, Washington and San Francisco, California studios.
