Playtika layoffs hit Best Fiends and Redecor teams

Playtika has laid off a number of staff mainly impacting its Best Fiends and Redecor teams, PocketGamer.biz understands.

Reports emerged from current and former staff on social media of the redundancies at the publisher. PocketGamer.biz has seen around 20 now former staff posting on LinkedIn seeking new roles following the layoffs.

Positions impacted include QA, engineers, group manager, developers, team leader, talent acquisition, artists and more. Some had only started their jobs this year.

It’s not clear exactly how many staff were affected by the job losses. Playtika did not comment on the matter.

Post-acquisition losses

Playtika studio Wooga was recently hit by around 50 layoffs, along with the cancellation of in-development solitaire title Claire’s Chronicles.

The publisher previously closed original Best Fiends developer Seriously in 2022 and moved operations from Helsinki to its Israel and Poland offices. It had acquired Seriously in 2019 for an undisclosed fee. At the time, the IP had picked up total gross sales of $175 million.

Playtika acquired Redecor developer Reworks, another Finnish studio, in a deal worth up to $600m in 2021. The deal involved $400m in cash, with the remaining $200m based on performance.

According to AppMagic estimates, Best Fiends player spending has been on the decline for years. Redecor sales, meanwhile, have also declined, stabilising over the past 10 months at post-launch lows.