SteamWorld studio Thunderful has announced another round of layoffs in a further "strategic restructuring program" that's set to affect dozens of employees, mostly focused across the company's development divisions.
In a news post on its official website, Thunderful says these layoffs are intended to reflect "a greater focus on third-party game publishing and a reduction in investments in internally-developed projects".
Company CEO Martin Walfisz says announcing Thunderful's second "restructuring" wave this year is "unfortunate", but that the company "see[s] no other alternatives in order to ensure the Group's long-term sustainability".
According to the news post, Thunderful's latest round of layoffs will "result in the termination of a large portion of the development team", although the layoffs won't exclusively be restricted to developers.
Between 80 and 100 employees will be affected by these layoffs. Thunderful says that its subsidiary Coatsink won't be in the firing line, but it seems like the company's other development divisions are all in the crosshairs, so to speak.
News of Thunderful's second layoff wave this year follows on from the closure of Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom developer Stage Clear Studios back in May, at which point Thunderful also reported a 28% drop in revenue on a year-on-year basis.
While Thunderful hasn't released official sales figures for its recent game launches, we do know that city-builder SteamWorld Build fell short of company expectations, and it seems the release of tactical RPG SteamWorld Heist 2 earlier this year wasn't enough to recover things.
Thunderful's news post doesn't make any suggestion that the company will be canceling upcoming releases, so you can expect recently-announced projects like the roguelite Lost in Random: The Eternal Die to go ahead.
Unfortunately, Thunderful isn't the only company being subjected to what companies would likely call "challenging market conditions" in recent times.
Big companies like Microsoft, Sony, and Take-Two are also being hit by layoffs and studio closures, and smaller studios aren't escaping unscathed either. These are truly difficult times for the gaming industry, it seems, although of course, that's not stopping C-suite execs reaping rewards galore.
