PlayStation Visual Arts Layoffs Add to Growing Job Cuts in the Industry
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- PlayStation’s Visual Arts was affected by layoffs last week.
- An unknown number of employees were informed that March 7 would be their final day at the office.
- These layoffs add Visual Arts to the growing list of game studios that have reduced their workforce this year.
Visual Arts, a studio owned by PlayStation, has suffered layoffs this week. The studio worked closely with Naughty Dog and other first-party game studios to produce art and animation for their games.
Kotaku first reported the layoffs. According to their report, several employees from the San Diego-based Visual Arts group were informed that March 7 would be their last day in the office. It is unknown how many employees were impacted.
These layoffs happened after Sony canceled Concord and had a restructuring of their top management. Kotaku also mentioned that the studio has contributed to the live-service game being made by Bend Studio that was recently canceled.
Abby LeMaster, a former project manager at Visual Arts, took to LinkedIn to share her thoughts about the layoffs. “It was tough waking up to messages that many friends and former coworkers from PSVA were laid off this morning.” her post reads. She then reminisces about her time at the studio and how “PSVA was about the people.” Her feed is full of reposts from staffers affected by the layoffs and looking for new work.
In the first quarter of this year, studios such as NetEase and BioWare have laid off a significant portion of their employees. NetEase has closed down their U.S. office affecting one of the teams responsible for Marvel Rivals. BioWare, on the other hand, cut off more than 50% of their workforce.
