🚨📢 Breaking News: New Ubisoft Mobile Shooter + Layoffs, Layoffs and Closures

announces 124 job cuts. Yep, some big people leave. The headline is of course that they canceled a project that was 7 plus years in development, which cost hundreds of millions. Two and a Half Gamers exclusive. Breaking news. Literally [music] breaking. Hello, hello. This is Two and a Half Gamers, the new segment as we get back to you to get the latest on this week's news, which could be basically called layoffs and closures as there will be a lot of it. Yep, but again, let's get straight into it. What has happened this week? So, The Division Resurgence is the new mobile shooter by Ubisoft, which was just launched on mobile. And of course, because it's so soon, we can't really

read the data properly. What we're seeing is basically [music] that the game is doing something like K downloads per day, but again, these numbers usually calibrate [music] even also the tower doing like first few weeks. So, let's see how that goes, but yep, it's a big shot here. Division of course is the big PC looter shooter, which Ubisoft is now bringing to mobile. So, let's see how this goes. I guess we'll most probably review it on the podcast, so you can you can expect that. Then we have Nazara, the big Indian company raising over 50 million to fund acquisitions and AI led expansion. So, yeah. As usual, only positive news usually comes related to AI. So, the guys over there are of course raising funds to kind of get more stuff running. They already purchased some of the companies before with let's say UK based Low Island game developer Fusebox

or the UK publisher Curve Games before. So, yep, I think this is one of the biggest like Indian like local gaming companies. He says like gaming gaming, I'm not talking about skill gaming and all these other things. Of course, that's like different league there. But yeah, let's see what comes out of it. Disclaimer, I still haven't seen anything come out of AI kind of let push into games yet as for game mechanics or game enabled games AI enabled games. Okay, and now we go on to the mentioned roller coaster of layoffs and closures. So, Bethesda shuts down Elder Scrolls Blades servers in June. So, this was the game that was trying to do pretty much Skyrim on mobile. Launched somewhere like March 2019 and as you would expect from a game that's coming from an PC studio on mobile, it didn't do really well because it's the pretty much something like

12 million plus downloads on 12 million plus revenue, which is quite a shitty number if you're looking for the after of mid-core title. Yeah, like if you remember those times, they literally had like the biggest enemy was 12-hour chest. I remember that. We played that a little bit back then, but yeah, this is just like I guess out of context unfortunately, so expected. Then we continue with VR platform Rec Room, which also will shut down by June 2026. This was one of the biggest spaces during the VR like second wave revolution around 2016-17 when I was there. So, this is quite interesting, but I guess the guys couldn't monetize the UGC content that the people there were creating. You know, this is not Roblox. VR is still struggling even though I would like for it to be otherwise, but yep, the market isn't really going anywhere there. It's still like tiny [music] and niche.

So, this is again expected. Then PlayStation mobile arm is hit by layoffs. So, as we see, it seems [music] that they cut off something like 50 people from there. Some people proclaimed that there will be most probably even closing the whole mobile Sony mobile division. Um, yep. Again, call more and more consolidation in the current market. What can we say? Then we have mobile focus studio Coffee Stain shuts down. These are the guys that did the Goat Simulator, so I guess again, the PC guys not working well for them for mobile because mobile is kind of bloodbath if you're not in mobile to begin with and you're coming from PC to mobile. It's usually the other way around where mobile people are kind of switching to greener pastures on PC. So, again, something around [music] I think 17 employees here fired here unfortunately. Then we have MechWarrior developer Piranha Games

again layoffs some people in continuous consolidation. Then we have a big layoff with the I guess one of the bigger ones like already on third one, fourth one. Eidos Montreal announces 124 job cuts. Yep, some big people leave. The headline is of course that they canceled a project that was 7 plus years in development, which cost hundreds of millions. Oh, yeah. This seems kind of wild. Cuz last time I heard the story, it was Project Titan at Blizzard, which gave us Overwatch basically built on its ashes. But yeah, let's see how this goes because we've been saying this all the time that pretty much all North American game development is kind of in danger because the costs are just not comparable to the development in Asia or even in Europe, which especially Asia is kind of coming for

their piece of the pie. Also, for those who don't know Eidos Montreal, those are the guys that did Deus Ex games and some more kind of proclaimed games there. So, that's there. And then we have Pixelberry laying off staff. Those are the guys behind Choices. So, again, more consolidation. I think it's like the seventh blood. There will be more. So, I guess let's continue. Uh, again, more layoffs because Epic Games, if you didn't know, just laid off 1,000 people. And the good news is that there's been actually a searchable database of those to kind of help them find their way back into the industry. So, if you want to go, you can go and check out the site called awesome people list on internet and there's pretty much like all the people that were laid off. And of course, you can add yourself there as an ex-Epic person and go pretty much get some visibility. And then we have another shutdown of IronSource ad network by Unity

as Unity is pretty much doing the same what AppLovin did and pretty much trying to the exact same move where AppLovin divested all of their games and now back to be like a pure ad ad-tech company. Mainly thanks to their big growth with the AI product Axion. And now Unity pretty much mirrors the same with them divesting a Supersonic developer publisher of hyper-casual games of course or hybrid-casual games [music] focusing on the AI user acquisition platform Vector. That's the one that Unity [music] does. So, again, divesting from the game making business rather having just the ad business plus the engine because they can't divest the engine of course. And then we have um Xbox FanFest going back on tour for its 25th anniversary celebration, which will happen along the Xbox Game Showcase, which going to happen on June 7th Sunday. So, yeah,

I guess people still think that this whole Xbox gaming CEO switcheroo will works out. Let's see because I'm kind of puzzled by this renewed initiative, but let's see because all eyes on deck. And then lastly, we have this kind of a let's say insult injury where Build a Rocket Boy CEO responds to end of publishing agreement [music] with IO Partners and addresses corporate sabotage allegations. So, yeah, these were the guys that were former GTA Rockstar developers trying to kind of build their own and it ended in this kind of a giant fiasco with the giant project that didn't really deliver. So, I guess there will be more dirty laundry going around the place. But yeah, it's layoffs layoffs layoffs and more layoff season unfortunately, but fret not, usually, you know,
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after all the consolidations, industry gets stronger hopefully. So, let's see that. And see you next week on

another segment of breaking [music] news. Have a nice day. Ciao.