Gameloft closes UK office

Mobile developer Gameloft has shuttered its UK base because “business generated across [ads and distribution divisions] over the past 2-3 years no longer justifies a local presence for this market”.

The studio’s managing director John-Paul Burke announced the closure on Linkedin (thanks Gamasutra), but did not specify how many employees have been affected by the closure. However, the company says is it “working with all employees, on a case by case basis, to find the best way to handle their situation in accordance with local employment regulations”.

“Unfortunately last week we closed Gameloft UK. What an amazing time we had there. For me as someone who has been playing Gameloft games from 2005 it was a dream job and I thank them for the opportunity,” Burke said.

“It gave me a fantastic platform and took me to beautiful cities and worked with amazing clients and colleagues. We had tremendous success and now it is on to the next exciting challenge. I would like to thank […] all the team members we had the honor to work with over the last few years.”

In a fuller statement from the firm, Gameloft said it was forced to “adapt [its] resources capacities” and is “adjusting and redeploying [its] commercial network to reflect [its] priorities”.

“As a company, we need to adapt our resources capacities and proceed with adjustments, in light of the fast-changing industry,” Gameloft said via a press statement. “In the B2B space, Gameloft is focusing its strategy on high added-value solutions such as tailored advertising solutions for brands and is focusing on a selection of priority markets. We are adjusting and redeploying our commercial network to reflect our priorities, and we have decided to create business hubs and rely on the most dynamic regions. This is unfortunately leading to the closure of our London commercial office. We are working with all employees, on a case by case basis, to find the best way to handle their situation in accordance with local employment regulations.

“We will continue serving the UK market for both our ads & distribution businesses from other European offices, as unfortunately, the level of business generated across both activities over the past 2-3 years no longer justifies to maintain a local presence for this market.

“We are creating business hubs and rely on the most dynamic regions to support our partners, and this way ensure that our commercial network, the biggest of any mobile game publishers, keeps bringing a unique support to game developers, mobile carriers and brands.”

These latest layoffs sadly come on the back of several other closures and cutbacks we’ve seen across studios in recent months, most recently Amazon Game Studios and PayDay developer, Starbreeze. In a brief statement on the latter company’s official website, the firm said it had decided to make organisational changes “in order to make the organization more efficient and reduce costs”, resulting in 60 redundancies primarily from its Stockholm office.

Other recent layoffs and closures include Iron Tiger Studios, ArenaNet, Next Games, Forgotten Key, Define Human Studios, Bandai Namco Vancouver, and Trion Worlds. Telltale Games also laid off its staff in a studio closure back in September 2018.