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Storm8 cuts over half its workforce with 130 jobs lost

Streamlining business

Storm8 cuts over half its workforce with 130 jobs lost

San Mateo-based developer Storm8 has cut around 130 jobs as it attempts to streamline its business.

With 240 people previously working at Storm8, this amounts to around half of the workforce losing their jobs simultaneously.

The studio had failed to find a hit game despite having launched numerous casual titles. One employee affected by the cuts told VentureBeat that "if you look at their lineup in the past two years, it’s pretty easy to connect the dots."

Continuing to evolve

"The mobile gaming industry has continued to rapidly evolve. We believe having a leaner organization with sharper focus is essential to win in the growing $40-plus billion mobile games market," said Storm8 co-founder and CEO Perry Tam.

"As such, we've made the very difficult decision to realign resources and part ways with approximately 130 talented colleagues. We truly appreciate everyone's hard work and dedication to Storm8 over the years."

"Moving forward, a more streamlined Storm8 will build off a strong foundation, be better positioned to support our existing games and successfully bring new games to market. We remain very excited for the future of mobile games and being well-positioned for sustained profitable growth."

Storm8 has taken a portfolio approach to game development which had been working well for the developer. It surpassed 1 billion downloads with over 45 games live in March 2015.


Editor

Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.