UK games industry layoffs continue with ‘F1 Manager’ developer Frontier

Frontier Developments, the developer of series like Elite, F1 Manager and RollerCoaster Tycoon, has announced that there will be an unknown number of redundancies to reduce annual operating costs.

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The news broke through the London Stock Exchange on October 17, stating that a period of “disappointing financial performance” had led to the decision.

As a result of the layoffs and a new constrained spending strategy, Frontier Developments aims to cut annual operating costs by up to 20 per cent.

“The organisational review and resulting actions are expected to conclude by early 2024, placing Frontier in a strong position to deliver efficiently on its strategic plan over the medium term, and capitalise on future opportunities,” read the statement.

Redundancies will be subject to consultation and for that reason it has not been disclosed how many developers and other employees of Frontier will be affected. This reorganisation is expected to wrap up in early 2024.

It has been a tricky year for Frontier, with a year-on-year drop in revenue from £114million to £104.6million for the financial year ending in May 2023.

Furthermore, Frontier shuttered its third-party publishing label Frontier Foundry in June, which led to “£28.7 million of non-cash intangible asset impairment and accelerated amortisation charges” impacting the total operating profit.

According to VideoGameLayoffs.com, a website managed by developer Farhan Noor, more than 6,000 jobs in the games industry have been lost over the course of 2023.

Epic Games cut over 800 roles in order to cut costs, and Embracer Group closed Volition only two months after celebrating its 30th anniversary. Additionally, the cancellation of Creative Assembly’s Hyenas was to stem expected “record losses of approximately 14.3 billion yen [£78.6million]” in this financial year.

In other gaming news, a Grand Theft Auto spin-off title could be in the works with one of Netflix’s gaming studios as it attempts to attract even more gamers to the subscription service.

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