Thunderful Group will cut about 20% of its staff in restructuring effort

Thunderful Group is joining the growing list of companies undergoing significant layoffs, as it’s announced it will be letting go of about 20% of its staff.

In a press statement, Thunderful Group states that “actions will include both significant staff reductions and evaluation of divestment of non-strategic assets.” It then goes into how much money these cuts will make, which is rather ghoulish. The company states that it employs around 500 people, so a 20% cut will be around 100 people losing their jobs.

“We have found no alternative other than to reduce costs and focus the business on areas with the best future growth and profitability prospects,” said CEO Martin Walfisz in a statement. “It has been difficult to make these decisions, and it saddens me that we will have to say goodbye to many skilled colleagues and partners. Nevertheless, I am convinced that this is a necessary direction for Thunderful and that these changes will make the company a stronger player in the market.”

Thunderful Group has its fingers in a lot of pies, but notably, they are the parent company of Thunderful Publishing, Headup Games, and Rising Star Games, focused on the publishing of indie and alternative games. There are a lot of developers under their umbrellas as well. They didn’t extrapolate on what these “non-strategic assets” are that they’re looking at divesting, so I can only imagine the anxiety at some of these companies right now.

The changing of the year is a largely arbitrary barrier, but I was hoping 2024 would be a lot quieter when it comes to layoffs. Instead, it seems as though it’s continuing the same momentum with little signs of stopping. With live service games faltering and companies beginning to experiment with generative AI, things could still get worse.