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Report: 32 staff laid off at Embracer's Zen Studios

Report: 32 staff laid off at Embracer's Zen Studios

Over 30 members of staff have been made redundant at Pinball Arcade maker Zen Studios.

The news was first hinted at with the company's former community manager, Adam Dienes, posting on Twitter that he and over 30 of his colleagues had been fired from their jobs. Video Game Layoffs, which tracks redundancies and job cuts in the industry, reports that 32 workers have been laid off at the developer.

Zen Studios was acquired by, who else but, Embracer Group back in 2020. The studio became a subsidiary of Saber Interactive.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, an Embracer rep once again parroted the line that it would not comment on individual studios or projects, while reiterating its prior message about an ongoing restructuring program at the company. That comes in the wake of the company failing to close a $2 billion deal, reportedly with Saudi Arabia. 

Embracer has made layoffs at a number of its companies, including Gearbox Publishing, Crystal Dynamics and Beamdog. The company has also closed Volition Games and Campfire Cabal.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.