Industry layoff watch: Supermassive, Ninja Theory, The Coalition, and a warning from Warhorse

The plague of games industry layoffs and studio closures that seemed to explode in 2023 has yet to subside. Just about every week there's news of some new restructuring, closure, or cancellation as the videogame industry, particularly in North America, is battered by global economic forces, corporate maneuvering, and private capital.

Here's the latest news related to the crisis that continues to unfold:

In August, three months after the release of Directive 8020, Supermassive issued a statement saying that up to 75 of its employees were at risk of layoff. LinkedIn posts from multiple former Supermassive employees (via Insider Gaming) indicate that those layoffs have now been completed, and that effectively everyone who was at risk of redundancy was let go.

"More than 70 brilliant people are leaving Supermassive: developers, artists, producers, QA, operations and more," Frank Tindle, IT and facilities director at Supermassive who'd been with the studio for 16 years, wrote on LinkedIn. …