A vast number of developers at Refractor Games, the development team responsible for Fifa World Cup: Launch Edition, have been laid off. In total, roughly 85 percent of developers at the studio have lost their jobs.
Fifa World Cup: Launch Edition was released on the 11th June exclusively to Netflix. It was published by Delphi Interactive, a company with credits on the recently released 007: First Light.
In the past few days, affected employees took to social media like LinkedIn to share the bad news. Art director Barclay Chantel wrote: “Well, it looks like I’m back on the market looking for a job again. Delphi just pulled the plug on Refactor studios right after we shipped the FIFA World Cup game for Netflix. The entire studio was let go today so if anyone is looking for talent I can put you in contact with someone pretty awesome folks.”
3D artist and motion capture expert Joseph Civitate wrote: “Our entire studio just got laid off at Refactor Games after releasing FIFA World Cup: Launch Edition on Netflix. Many talented hard working people including myself across all departments were let go a couple months after our game shipped, due to the funding on our next project being cancelled.”
Posts like these (and others) led some to believe that the entire studio was shuttered. It turns out this isn’t the case, though the cuts are nonetheless substantial. Gamesbeat, speaking to studio head Nathan Burba, confirmed with the outlet that 85 percent of the studio was let go. Insider Gaming reported that around 80 staff were fired in total, and this was due to funding being pulled, though Burma “did not elaborate” on his message when speaking to Gamesbeat.
Eurogamer has contacted Fifa and Delphi for comment.
