Skydance Confirms Layoffs Across Its Games Division
Four weeks after the $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition closed, the merged games unit cut art, design and engineering staff; the company won't say how many.
Skydance has laid off staff across its games division, four weeks after completing its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Skydance confirmed this week that it's laying off workers across its video game division, four weeks after buying Warner Bros. Discovery. [Warner Bros-Paramount merger brings games layoffs amid $6B savings push — Dealroom (November 11)] [Skydance confirms it's laying off game workers after buying Warner Bros. for $110 billion — Vertical Slice (November 11)]
The company told Variety it's "implementing reorganization and operational shifts across a few areas of our business" and didn't disclose a number. Colleagues' posts name at least 25 people; other reporting puts the figure near 30. [Warner Bros-Paramount merger brings games layoffs amid $6B savings push — Dealroom (November 11)] [Skydance confirms it's laying off game workers after buying Warner Bros. for $110 billion — Vertical Slice (November 11)]
The division being cut was assembled in layers: Paramount merged Skydance Interactive and Skydance New Media into Paramount Games in July, then the October 6 acquisition folded in Warner Bros. Games, and the combined unit, now called Skydance Games and led by Tony Driscoll, works across Star Trek, Mortal Kombat and Harry Potter. It's publishing PlatinumGames' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin. Warner's side arrived with its own problem: nothing since 2023's Hogwarts Legacy and Mortal Kombat 1 has matched those hits, which is the kind of record that makes a new owner reach for the cost line. [Warner Bros-Paramount merger brings games layoffs amid $6B savings push — Dealroom (November 11)] [Skydance confirms it's laying off game workers after buying Warner Bros. for $110 billion — Vertical Slice (November 11)]
The layoffs land inside the merger's public math. Skydance carries more than $80 billion in debt from the deal and has pledged at least $6 billion in annual savings within three years; co-CEOs David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz told Wall Street the savings would include layoffs. The games cuts follow the same program visible everywhere else in the company: a five-day office mandate, a voluntary buyout round that took veteran staff out of CNN and CBS News, and now headcount in the division that was supposed to be growth. Games are a small line in a $110 billion merger. They're also where the savings pledge stopped being abstract, because the people posting their goodbyes this weekend have names. [Warner Bros-Paramount merger brings games layoffs amid $6B savings push — Dealroom (November 11)] [Skydance confirms it's laying off game workers after buying Warner Bros. for $110 billion — Vertical Slice (November 11)]
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