It’s been reported that staff at 2K-owned studio Visual Concepts Austin have been hit with layoffs.
This comes via a LinkedIn post published late yesterday (February 6) by former art manager Brad Bowling (via Game Developer), who stated that “a group of very talented developers” have been affected.
“Well... the games industry bloodletting continues,” Bowling wrote. “Today Visual Concepts Austin laid off myself and a group of very talented developers. I have had a great time over the past couple of years working with some of the finest game devs in the industry. Over the past 23 years of making game art, I have seen some downturns but nothing like this.”
At the time of writing, neither 2K nor Visual Concepts Austin have publicly verified that layoffs have occurred, but TechRadar Gaming has reached out to 2K for comment, and we will update this story if we receive a response.
Visual Concept Austin, by its own description, “works on almost everything [Visual Concepts has] got: NBA 2K, WWE 2K, LEGO 2K Drive, and other projects that help propel the company forward.”
Although we’re only at the start of February, 2024 has already sadly been full of reports of layoffs from across the games industry. Last week, it was confirmed that the Devolver Digital-owned studio Artificer is laying off 28 employees, while last month, staff cuts were announced by Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive, Lords of the Fallen publisher CI Games, and more.
Elsewhere, huge staff cuts were announced in early January by both live-streaming service Twitch and game software development company Unity. Over 500 members of staff were affected at Twitch, while around 1,800 (approximately 25 percent of the workforce) were impacted at Unity.
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