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Update: Wavedash co-founders want to connect former staff with new jobs after investment cuts forced layoffs

Update: Wavedash co-founders want to connect former staff with new jobs after investment cuts forced layoffs

Update (October 10th): Wavedash co-founders Matt Fairchild and Jason Rice have provided a statement on behalf of former staff.

The two are actively attempting to help put former staff in touch with new positions. It appears the suddenness of the layoffs was caused by investment in the studio dropping at short notice.

“There are inherent risks when you are a startup indie studio, and upon learning that we would no longer have investment support, we notified the team as soon as we knew this was happening," said Fairchild and Rice.

"We are doing everything we can to help affected team members find new roles in the industry. This includes providing job-seeking advisement, referrals, recommendations, and direct outreach to partners.

"We had an amazing team of designers, programmers, artists, engineers and marketers and we strongly encourage anyone looking for top talent to contact us at [email protected] and we will share appropriate resumes and make introductions."

Original Story: Icons: Combat Arena developer Wavedash Games has laid off around 25 members of staff.

The studio launched its free-to-play take on Smash Bros. earlier this year through Steam Early Access. It seems the team’s expectations weren’t reached, however, as the studio has now laid off most of its 30-strong staff.

“When we started Wavedash three years ago, our mission was to create the game that we most wanted to play, and to share it with the world,” said Wavedash, in a statement released last Friday. “Along the way, as the mission grew, we had the great fortune to be joined by some of the most talented, passionate builders in the game industry.

“Sadly, we have fallen short of our goals – but we feel immensely fortunate to have had the chance to bring Icons into existence, together.”

Prior to the redundancies, Wavedash has been developing a “definitive” edition of Icons that will continue for the foreseeable future. The studio plans to release information on the game’s continued development sometime this week.

But while the statement alludes to staff preparing for closure, a former employee has told Gamasutra that now-redundant employees were given less than two weeks notice. And like that other mass studio layoff, employees were not offered severance pay or benefits before being shown the door.


Staff Writer

Natalie Clayton is an Edinburgh-based freelance writer and game developer. Besides PCGamesInsider and Pocketgamer.biz, she's written across the games media landscape and was named in the 2018 GamesIndustry.biz 100 Rising Star list.