Deck Nine Games is the latest video game developer to be hit with layoffs. The US-based game developer made the announcement on X/Twitter Tuesday evening. According to Deck Nine Games, around 20% of their employees will be gone.
“Like others in the game industry right now, Deck Nine has been affected by the game industry’s worsening market conditions,” the post read. “Today we made the difficult decision to lay off 20% of our staff. These people are amazing, talented, and awesome developers. They have made a huge impact during their time at Deck Nine Games and we did not take this decision lightly Please hire these people if you can, they’re amazing.”
Founded in 1997 under the name Idol Minds, Deck Nine exclusively developed PlayStation games until 2012, where it switched to mobile game development. Eventually in 2017 Idol Minds made the switch to narrative based games, rebranding as Deck Nine Games. Since it’s rebranding, Deck Nine Games has developed Life is Strange: Before The Storm, Life Is Strange: True Colors, and The Expanse: A TellTale Series.
Unsurprisingly, many across the video game industry voiced their sadness and disappointment at these layoffs. Deck Nine Games game director Stephen Frost shared his reaction to the news on a X/Twitter post. Additionally, he alledged that the developers leadership “took paycuts” to keep the layoff numbers low.
The layoffs within video game industry have not slowed down in the slightest. Today alone, alongside Deck Nine Games, gamers saw Sony cut 900 jobs across their affiliated game studios.