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TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is reportedly laying off hundreds of employees and “drastically scaling back” its video game business.
As reported by the South China Morning Post (and seen by GamesIndustry ), ByteDance has closed most of its Wushuang studio in Shanghai and laid off staff or moved them to other parts of the company. Jobs were also cut at the Jiangnan game development studio in Hangzhou.
Sources familiar with the cuts said ByteDance’s current gaming projects – which include a few mobile games – will continue to be supported in its Shanghai office, but no new developments will begin. Perhaps the most popular game to come from ByteDance is Marvel Snap, a new collectible card game developed by former Hearthstone director Ben Broad.
ByteDance has invested heavily in its gaming division with a major push to recruit over 900 new employees in 2020. Business has grown significantly over the past few years – most recently investing in Elden Ring developer FromSoftware.
Similar to Netflix’s push into gaming, ByteDance tried to add games to its social media platform TikTok in May, but it’s unclear whether that effort will continue amid reports of a slowdown.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He talks about The Witcher all day.
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