Wooga Focuses on Story Games and Fires 30 Employees
In the German Wooga again layoffs. The company has decided to focus on the development of games with a plot and, in this regard, is conducting a complete restructuring.
Wooga decided to make a change
Today, on February 27, Jens Begemann, CEO of Wooga, announced a new stage in the company’s life in a post on the company’s blog.
According to Jens, one of the most successful games of the company is the hidden Pearl’s Peril, whose performance continues to grow even five years after the launch.
In 2017, Wooga decided to pay more attention to games with a plot and released another narrative hidden – June’s Journey. A few months after the release, the game became one of the most successful titles of the company.
Based on the success of both games, Wooga, according to its CEO, decided to become a leader in the market of similar products – story-oriented casual games.
June’s Journey
“Thanks to Pearl’s Peril and June’s Journey, we have gained a lot of expertise in developing episodic narrative content and providing it to users on a weekly basis.
We are one of the very few developers who have achieved mastery in this and have acquired a large audience of loyal players who are constantly in search of new games and stories. Based on this success, we plan to increase our audience and create story-based casual games in different genres,” said Jens.
To do this, the company is planning a restructuring. Previously, the company was divided into studios, each of which specialized in a particular genre. Now the structure of the company will be based on the product lifecycle, allowing teams to specialize in one or another phase of development.
During the transition to a new type of development organization, Wooga is preparing to say goodbye to 30 employees (about 10% of the current staff).
Major layoffs are not new for Wooga
This is not the first time Wooga has decided on major layoffs. In 2016, it dissolved two offices and lost at least 40 employees due to failed experience in the development of midcore projects.
Then the company admitted that it no longer plans to focus on any niches other than casual, where it traditionally has strong positions.
Recall that Wooga was originally known primarily as a developer of projects in the match-3 genre. Her portfolio includes projects such as Diamond Dash and Jelly Splash. She also acted as the developer of the not very successful, but warmly received audience Futurama: Game of Drones.
Not All Wooga story Hiddens are Successful
They tried to repeat the success of Pearl’s Peril in the German company before June’s Journey. In 2015, Wooga released Hidden Agent Alice. It was also a story-oriented game.
Despite the fact that Agent Alice has become one of the fastest downloaded games of the company (about 1 million installations per day), today it is one of the lowest earning games of the company. If the monthly incomes of Pearl’s Peril and June’s Journey reach up to a million dollars, then Agent Alice has them in the region of tens of thousands of dollars.
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