Following a hectic period before Citizencon, during which staff were mandated to work 7-day work weeks, Cloud Imperium Games have just reportedly laid off some of its staff.
The information comes from an ex-CIG employee, who took to X (formerly Twitter) to say that their former employer “is letting a lot of staff go over the last two days with zero compensation right after working them to the bone without even much as a thanks,” and that a “formal announcement” should be “soon.”
Speaking with our own sources, we can confirm that Cloud Imperium Games has been letting some of its staff go these past couple of days, but we’re currently unable to verify the extent of the layoffs. At the time of writing, several sources said the layoffs have mainly affected the studio’s QA department and that the number of those laid off isn’t as large as initially made out to be, with one source estimating around a dozen currently affected (around 1% of its total workforce).
That being said, it’s still early days fairly early days yet, and Cloud Imperium Games has a history of laying off its staff over an extended period. Earlier this year, CIG quietly laid off an estimated 100 or so staff members at its Austin and LA offices which took weeks and even making affected employees sign NDAs to prevent them from talking about being laid off.
Cloud Imperium Games has yet to make an internal or public announcement to its staff on the layoffs and any possible restructuring.
We will update this article as we hear more.
Both current and former employees of Cloud Imperium Games can contact me securely and anonymously at [email protected] as I continue to investigate the company’s issues.
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