The video game industry is witnessing a rising trend of layoffs, often nauseatingly juxtaposed against huge profit postings and executive bonuses. The latest late-stage capitalist hell-company pulling this crap is Amazon, which is once again trimming jobs from its gaming division. This unfortunate occurrence adds to the broader pattern of workforce challenges within the gaming sector.
According to a report by Aftermath, Amazon is letting go of 180 employees from its games division. The entire staff of Amazon’s Twitch channel, called Crown Channel, is part of the layoffs. Game Growth, ironically, is another department that has been badly hit by the job cuts.
The site was able to confirm the job cuts and obtained a copy of the email sent by Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann to employees. In the email, Hartmann explained that the company has been listening to its customers and will be focusing its efforts on the free games that it gives to Amazon Prime members each month.
“I know this is difficult news and that the impact will be felt widely. It never feels good to say goodbye to colleagues,” Hartmann wrote. “This isn’t a decision the leadership team came to quickly; it was the result of extensive considerations and road mapping for our future. We are proud of the work the teams have been doing, pushing into new areas with weekly content on Crown Channel, and finding more ways to help publishers reach new audiences with Game Growth.”
This is the second time this year that Amazon had to let go of employees from its gaming division. In April, the company laid off over 100 employees from the same division. The company, as a whole, has cut over 27,000 this year.
Over the last year, companies in the gaming industry have laid off a staggering number of employees. Epic let go of over 800 employees while EA cut over 700 jobs, or roughly 6% of its total manpower. Microsoft’s mass layoffs affected around 10,000 employees worldwide including staff members from Bethesda, Xbox, and 343 Industries.
CD Projekt Red, Bungie, Naughty Dog, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Riot Games, Unity, and Embracer Group have all been hit with the wave of job cuts. It seems that we get news of layoffs every other week. Employees have pushed hard for unionization to give workers more rights and protection. Activision Blizzard, CD Projekt Red, and SEGA are just some of the studios that have unions for their employees.
