Penny’s Big Breakway developer Evening Star lays off six staff members

CEO of Evening Star (creators of Penny’s Big Breakaway), Dave Padilla, has announced that the studio has had to part ways with six of its employees. This adds to a growing tally of game developers who have lost their jobs throughout the year.

In a statement, Padilla says that Evening Star “has been swept up in the same turbulence that has affected so many of our peers in the games industry for the last year and a half.” It goes on to say that, “Despite our best efforts to secure another project to keep our team together, we are in the unfortunate situation of having to lay off some of the folks that have worked with us for the last few years on Penny’s Big Breakaway.”

The Linkedin statement lists the six employees affected and recommends to other employers that they hire them, stating that they’re “best in class developers who shipped a critically beloved console title.” The list includes two artists, an engineer, two designers, and a producer.

We’ve seen a lot of crass and heartless layoffs over the past couple of years, and while we don’t know and can’t speculate on exactly how these went down, from the outside, it just seems regrettable. The statement says that, following the release of Penny’s Big Breakaway, Evening Star has had trouble finding a publisher to fund their next project. 

This is actually a rather common problem among developers that has resulted in some studios closed outright. It has been a problem, especially recently, since a lot of the investments made during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns dried up. Hopefully, things will get turned around soon.