Sebastian Wojciechowski, CEO of People Can Fly, commented in a message posted on Twitter that these movements are due «to external market pressures» that go beyond what the company expected. «The video game industry market continues to evolve and we have to adapt to the current situation,» says Wojciechowski. The executive adds that they are expanding commissioned works, while the self-publishing strategy is currently limited to a single game (Project Bifrost).
People Can Fly says it believes in its teams, its games and its potential, but must adjust its plans based on its financial capabilities. This is the second restructuring that the Polish studio has undergone in 2023. Last January the company announced the layoffs of around 30 employees and in April it canceled Project Dagger, a new action and adventure intellectual property that was initially going to be published by Take-Two. The publisher terminated the contract and People Can Fly decided to move forward, but ultimately scrapped the project.
These moves are limited to People Can Fly's self-publishing strategy and, except as a surprise, do not affect the commissioned games it has in hand. In this sense, the Polish studio is working on Project Gemini for Square Enix and Project Maverick for Xbox Game Studios. For now, neither of these two titles has been presented and the only thing we know about them is the existence of the contract between the parties. Regarding Project Maverick we can add that its budget is between 30 and 50 million dollars, which Microsoft will provide in its entirety.
So far this year, the video game industry has laid off nearly 15,000 workers, more than the 10,000 who were affected by cuts in all of 2023 or the 8,500 in 2022. Microsoft Gaming, Bungie, Take Two Interactive, PlayStation Studios, Activision Blizzard and Unity have been some of the companies that have carried out some of the biggest personnel cuts.