GoG Lays Off About 10% of Their Staff

When we look back on 2019, I think we’re going to have to spare a thought to what’s going to be known as bloody February, because with just two days left before the end of the month, it’s been revealed that GOG, in the midst of some slowing growth and reduced revenue, has laid off “at least” a dozen employees, which would account for 10 percent of their staff.

The news was largely broken by Kotaku, who received the following official statement:

“Letting people go is never easy. We have been rearranging certain teams since October 2018, effecting in closing around a dozen of positions last week. At the same time, since the process started we have welcomed nearly twice as many new team members, and currently hold 20 open positions.”

However, according to people who were actually laid off who also spoke to Kotaku, things aren’t nearly as optimistic internally: apparently, the company had been dangerously close to actually losing money in the past few months, and the fact that they’re probably going to have to increase the developer share of games sold on their platform (likely following the lead of the Epic Games Store) will hurt future revenue even more. To them, it seemed as if the company was panicking, and as a result of it, they’re suffering larger layoffs than they’ve ever suffered before.

GoG is owned by CD Projekt, who has in the past tried to support the platform by offering exclusive content from another subsidiary, CD Projekt Red, such as the Thronebreaker campaign for Gwent, although lately, it seems they’ve canceled those efforts as Thronebreaker is now available on Steam as well.

This has not been a good month for the games industry: and if the sagging sales of Anthem are any indication, things aren’t going to get any better any sooner from an industry perspective.

It seems 2019 really is just the sequel to 2018, huh?