Antstream Arcade, the retro gaming cloud gaming service, has announced a “small number of layoffs” as reported by GameIndustry.biz.
So What Happened?
Antstream Arcade has laid off a “small number” of staff, including PR manager Diane Hutchinson and UI designer Robyn Jamieson, which posted on their LinkedIn profiles about the unfortunate news. In an interesting turn of events, Antstream provided GameIndustry.biz a statement about the layoffs which reads:
“The game industry is currently facing a very challenging period. Due to a strategic shift in focus internally, we have made the difficult decision to make a small number of redundancies within the Antstream Arcade team. This decision was not made lightly, and we will be working to support those affected throughout the process. Antstream Arcade remains dedicated to delivering the best possible experience to our players.”
What makes these layoffs even more painful is that they follow the recent launch of Antstream Arcade on PlayStation consoles. The layoffs from PlayStation and Xbox, along with many other publishers and developers, over the last two years has been tough to swallow. However, I’m not surprised that Antstream is also laying off staff. The gaming industry itself is feeling the contraction from unparalleled growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also have to factor in that one of the major shareholders in Antstream Arcade is Atari, which is also struggling to stay profitable.
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