Kingsisle Entertainment Inc., the video-game developer behind family friendly online games such as "Wizard101" and "Pirate101," has laid off 72 Austin employees, according to a notice filed with the Texas Workforce Commission dated May 18.
The company's president and chief operating officer David Nichols said in the document that the layoffs were announced to employees on May 12 and that the employees affected were offered severance benefits.
Layoffs can be cyclical at video-game studios as projects scale up or wind down post-release, but in a statement, Kingsisle said the layoffs were due to the cancellation of unreleased mobile games. The company gave no indication that its flagship games, "Wizard101" or "Pirate101" are in any danger of going away or scaling down:
To verify, KingsIsle had a reduction in force on May 12th which impacted some of our talented employees, and we wish them the best. This coincides with a couple of unreleased mobile games being cancelled. The strategy is to refocus our efforts on our MMO games and polish our more promising mobile projects, many of which are still slated for a 2016 release. Fans of our MMOs should know that Pirate101 is soon to receive an update and will be going to Test Realm most likely next week. Wizard101 has new content updates in the works for both Summer and Fall 2016.
The company has opened up a test realm for "Pirate101" called "Valencia Part 2" since the statement was written. In addition to its two computer games, the company offers several online games on its site and has released two mobile games, "Grub Guardian" and "Rise & Destroy."
You can find the full filing with the Texas Workforce Commission below:
About the Author
