Report: Playtika-owned studio Wooga has laid off 50 people

Playtika-owned studio Wooga has reportedly laid off around 50 staff, following the cancelation of a project and a move to a new office.

According to PocketGamer.biz, the news comes just as the developer moved into a new Berlin office. Wooga also canceled Claire‛s Chronicles: Solitaire, which had a soft launch in October 2024.

“Around 50 staff are said to have lost their jobs, a figure backed up by social media posts on LinkedIn by current and former staff,” reads the PocketGamer.biz report. “Impacted roles include artists, analysts, designers and producers.”

Game Developer contacted Wooga to confirm the layoff and cancellations reports. The studio declined to comment.

“Yesterday was a very sad day,” Wooga game artist Lennart Stenzeld said on LinkedIn. “Wooga parted with so many wonderful and talented people. It‛s heartbreaking.” The message was echoed by associate publishing director Martin Rusev, lead product marketing manager Galina Fedulova, and senior engineer Ricardo Loreto Rodríguez.

“As you might have read about, there was a layoff at Wooga, one of the reasons being the [cancelation] of a project,” senior software engineer Ricardo Bustamante de Queiroz said on LinkedIn. “That was a project I was allocated in, and as a consequence of that, my contract and also all other contractors‛ also ceased to be.”

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At least seven other developers announced being affected by the reported layoffs via the platform, including roles across the art and marketing departments.

Playtika reportedly laid off up to 400 employees last year

The mobile publisher reportedly cut between 300 to 400 jobs in January 2024. At that time it employed around 3,800 people. It also laid off over 600 workers in December 2022, pulling multiple projects from its release slate.

More recently, Playtika acquired mobile developer SuperPlay in September 2024 for an initial fee of $700 million. The deal included an additional contingent consideration of up to $1.25 billion, which will be paid out if the studio meets certain financial targets for 2025, 2026, and 2027.

Playtika CEO Robert Antokol described the SuperPlay acquisition as a “key move in strengthening our leadership in mobile games, driving growth with scaled titles, and unlocking new opportunities.”

Previously, Wooga laid off 40 staff members in 2016, shutting down an internal game studio in the process, as well as 30 additional employees in 2018. Back in April 2020, Wooga CEO and founder Jens Begemann departed the company after 11 years.