The studio behind Rec Room has laid off "about half" of its employees
Rec Room Studio, the developer behind the eponymous social sandbox reminiscent of Roblox, has announced significant layoffs. The company has decided to let go of nearly half of its staff—approximately 100 employees.
Rec Room
In an official statement, Rec Room's leadership acknowledged that the studio could not fully realize its ambitions. Their platform was built on the idea that any user could create content on a variety of devices: VR headsets, consoles, PCs, and smartphones. Over time, it became apparent that working with UGC (user-generated content) on mobile was not gaining popularity (partly due to the lack of convenient tools), but maintaining it required significant effort from the studio. The need to optimize content for different platforms also consumed a considerable amount of the developers' resources.
Now, Rec Room has decided to adjust its course. The studio will continue to support all platforms but will pay slightly less attention to mobile and consoles. Additionally, it will shift away from the goal of enabling "everyone to create" and will provide more assistance to the top creators.
This marks the second round of layoffs at Rec Room in six months. The previous reductions occurred in March, when the studio parted ways with 16% of its employees.