Thunderful Games is letting go of 80-100 employees and changing its focus to publish games from other developers.
In a press release, Thunderful shared that these layoffs are part of a big plan to change things up, and some game projects have been canceled, though they didn’t say how many. Martin Walfisz, the CEO, mentioned feeling sad about this decision, even though it’s not the first time this year they’ve had to do it. Back in January, a similar situation led to 20% of the team losing their jobs, which Walfisz says they couldn’t avoid.
He explained, “It is regrettable to announce a second restructuring of Thunderful in less than a year, but we unfortunately see no other alternatives in order to ensure the Group’s long-term sustainability and resilience.” By working more with outside game makers, Thunderful hopes to save money, be more flexible, and have better control over their finances. They have many great workers, and it’s tough to let them go.
The company thinks these changes will save them 80-90 MSEK (around $7.3-8.2 million), but most of these savings won’t show up until early 2025. The changes are starting right away.
As Thunderful shifts to work more with outside developers, they aim to lower costs and make games faster while still keeping some of their own projects going, like the SteamWorld series and Lost in Random.
Thunderful’s latest game, SteamWorld Heist 2, came out in August and got some good reviews, including a 9/10 from GameSpot.
