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Funcom and Transmission Games both announce job losses

By on October 1, 2009
  • Funcom, the publicly-listed developer/publisher of Age of Conan is still struggling. In an attempt to cut costs, it is slashing 20% of its workforce (60 people, mainly in its home country of Norway) and trying to shift much of the rest of it to Canada to benefit from tax breaks.
  • Australia’s Transmission Games has made 20 staff redundant following the release of Ashes Cricket.

Is the new economic reality seeing companies trim staff at the end of their projects, hoping to hire them back as contractors at the height of their next game? And if so, does that mean that the Hollywood model of freelancers is finally coming to games?

An update yesterday suggested that Transmission Games may have had 30 layoffs, not 20

(Added to the Job Loss Tracker, naturally.)

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com