Another round of layoffs have hit the gaming industry with word that Media Molecule just laid off several employees. The Sony owned studio known for games like Dreams and LittleBigPlanet, made 20 employees redundant to reduce their employee total from 135 to 115.
Media Molecule is a Guildford-based studio that was co-founded by Mark Healey, Alex Evans, David Smith, and Kareem Ettouney. All four of these co-founders were former developers at the now defunct Lionhead Studios, the creators of the Fable franchise. Media Molecule's most famous franchise is LittleBigPlanet, with the first game coming out for the PlayStation 3 back in 2008. In 2010, Sony acquired Media Molecule. Since that acquisition, Media Molecule made a few additional LittleBigPlanet games, created two games in the Tearaway series, and released Dreams in 2020.
Media Molecule issued a statement via Twitter that confirms initial reports about the layoffs. They continue to say that they will issue an update on future plans for the studio at a later date.
2023 has been a particularly brutal year for layoffs within the gaming industry. Layoffs have impacted companies and studios such as Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Twitch, CD Projekt Red, Embracer Group, Gearbox, Epic Games, Naughty Dog, Telltale and many more.
