Meta Layoffs Begin and Even the Game Developers Aren’t Safe
Meta has once again taken up the scythe and defeated a broad band of employees from its development field. The first in what is expected in total 10,000 job cuts in the company Is Expected to impact teams for Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and in the company’s Reality Labs division working on its virtual reality technology. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’syear of efficiencyLayoffs have also hit members of Meta’s game studios working on VR titles.
Meta owns nine separate game studios and has four purchased late last year. Staff at two of those studios, Ready at Dawn and Downpour Interactive, have already indicated that Meta is in the process of downsizing. Colin McInerney, Designer at Ready at Dawn, tweeted Wednesday that he and many others in the game studio received the boot. Daan van Zelst, a level designer at Downpour, also hinted that major cuts were being made in the studio. Other members of the Downpour team as well implied Wednesday is “the hardest day” of her career.
Reports on Tuesday indicated that Meta would not attack its game studios with layoffs, but as evidenced by the employees who have now been laid off, that was not the case. Business Insider previously reported that Reality Labs’ gaming division has been balanced more attention and resources. According to three anonymous sources, while the game studios were “safe,” the cuts were intended to hit other teams working at Facebook and in the RL department.
Bloomberg reported, based on an internal memo, that the cuts would impact both its social media apps and Reality Labs. This first set of 4,000 cuts is just the first part of metas second round of massive layoffs since last year. Zuckerberg previously promised that the company would not need any further cuts after that original job cuts of 11,000 last November. Zuckerberg’s previous statement on the layoffs mentioned there were cuts in April and May. Inside sources said the next round of layoffs could take place on May 22.
Gizmodo reached out to Meta for comment, but we didn’t immediately receive a response.
Downpour is the studio being worked on Furthera VR first-person perspective military simulator. meta, then facebook, acquired the company back in 2021. The Studio Approved its 1.10 update for Further last February. Ready at Dawn continued to work Echo VR, an arena sports game. In February Meta announced Echo VR’s servers would be shut down next August along with Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth quote dwindling player numbers.
The memo, cited by Bloomberg, mentions that those remaining on those depleted teams will be reassigned. While Meta isn’t the first big tech company Staff levels have been massively reduced in recent monthsIt is recently flip-flops from concentrating on his “Metaverse” initiatives on artificial intelligence has placed a heavy burden on the Reality Labs division. Bosworth recently told Nike Asia that the company is increasingly working on the “commercialization” of AI this year.
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