Bad newsSkydance Games Lays Off Developers a Month After the Warner Bros. Merger
Skydance Games has cut staff and scaled down projects five weeks after the Paramount and Warner Bros. games teams were merged. The company has not said how many jobs went, and its first earnings report promised billions in savings.
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Skydance Games has laid off developers just over a month after the merger of Warner Bros. and Paramount, and has not said how many. Variety reported on 9 November that the company confirmed that roles are affected and that it will scale down some projects. It described the move as a reorganisation. Skydance gave no further detail. TheWrap counted at least 25 people laid off, ranging from producers and writers to engineers and artists, and says the total is unclear.
What the company said
A Skydance spokesperson told Variety the company is reorganising and shifting operations in a few areas to position its games arm for long-term growth. It said it had made the difficult decision to scale down some projects, and that the cuts are not a reflection of the talent of those affected. The company gave no figure and named no cancelled game.
The games teams had only just been merged. On 6 October the Paramount Games Studio was combined with Warner Bros. Games’ internal developers, including Avalanche Software, NetherRealm Studios, Rocksteady Studios, TT Games and teams in Montreal and Boston, according to Variety. A single games and experiences unit now oversees work based on properties from Star Trek to Harry Potter.
The cost target behind it
The same day, Skydance published its first earnings report since the deal. The Hollywood Reporter says the quarter showed revenue of $7 billion, net earnings of $73 million and adjusted EBITDA of $1 billion, none of it including Warner Bros. Discovery, whose deal closed after the quarter ended.
The company said it expects savings of at least $2.2 billion from corporate overhead, real estate and facilities, $1 billion from marketing, $1.2 billion from technology and $1.4 billion from procurement and vendors. It also expects to keep spending $30 billion a year on content. TheWrap reports a target of at least $6 billion in cost savings that includes an unspecified number of layoffs.
What is not known
Neither report says how many of Skydance Games’ staff have gone or which projects were cut. TheWrap says the company had also offered some employees voluntary buyouts and is moving to a five-day office week. The games division was launched as a studio in June with titles based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Avatar properties, TheWrap notes, and it is not stated whether those are affected.
