Glu Mobile lays off dozens
Restructuring cited for termination of 46 developers, departure of CTO Tim Wilson, closure of Long Beach studio, cancellation of Car Town Racing
Glu Mobile on Wednesday enacted a restructuring plan that has cost 46 developers their jobs. As spotted by Gamasutra, the mobile game publisher detailed the plan in an SEC filing "as part of its efforts to streamline its operating expense structure in alignment with its business strategy."
The job losses are split between the company's San Francisco headquarters and its Long Beach, California studio, which is being shuttered entirely. The San Francisco layoffs include 22 employees who had been working on the company's central technology team, or in Android development and QA. The Long Beach layoffs represent 24 people who had been working on Car Town Racing, which soft-launched in the Philippines and Singapore in June, and just expanded to Canada, Singapore, Philippines, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark this week.
Glu's Long Beach studio had been in a precarious position since January, when the company detailed a larger round of layoffs and closed its Bellevue, Washington studio. At the time, it said the Long Beach studio's future hinged on Car Town Racing's performance in soft launch.
The restructuring will also see Glu Mobile part ways with its chief technology officer, Tim Wilson. Wilson joined Glu as CTO in October of 2015 after nearly two decades with Electronic Arts (interrupted by a relatively brief sojourn with Gaikai around the time the game streaming firm was acquired by Sony).
In all, Glu said this latest round of restructuring will cost it $1.5 million to $1.75 million, most of that related to employee severance, with up to $650,000 stemming from lease and contract termination costs.