Marvel Contest of Champions devs Kabam face major layoffs at LA studio
But not clear how it'll affect MCOC
- Kabam, the devs behind Marvel Contest of Champions, have 'consolidated' their LA offices
- This has resulted in an unknown number of layoffs, but no indication it will affect MCOC
- Still, it continues a worrying trend of job losses and restructuring affecting all facets of gaming
Well, it's a day ending with 'y' in the gaming industry, and you know what that means! Yes, more layoffs, and once more it's from a celebrated mobile game developer. This time around, Kabam are the ones facing cuts at their LA offices, as the Marvel Contest of Champions devs downsize.
The general overview of the news is that Kabam are 'consolidating' their LA offices with layoffs as part of the procedure. Exact numbers aren't available, but as far as we know there aren't any explicit shifts in how Marvel Contest of Champions or their other mobile release, ShopTitans, are being handled.
No contest
It's definitely an interesting turn of events because Kabam, as recently as 2022, were quite eager to get into LA when they merged with Netmarble US, who were based in the city. But as always it seems that the salad days the industry enjoyed during the early 2020s (what a phrase to write) are over.Fortunately, at the moment there isn't any indication this will affect Marvel Contest of Champions in particular. With it being one of Kabam's most successful games, that'll be good news for fans, but given that Ubisoft were also not hesitant to axe devs on the recently released Rainbow Six Mobile, I wouldn't blame you for being cautious.
For context, Kabam has run all of two major releases: Contest of Champions and Shop Titans. MCoC has drawn over 225 million downloads and $1.5bn in revenue according to the folks at analytics firm AppMagic. So, hopefully it'd be safe from any downsizing. But as we've seen with Destiny, being a big name doesn't mean you're immune to that kind of shakeup, and being more than a decade old, it could be seen as having passed its peak by business-minded folks.
In any case, if you want to keep up with these developments, then check in on our sibling site PocketGamer.biz for all this biz-related stuff. And if you want to give some love to the indie developers toiling away outside of the corporate sphere, why not check out the best mobile indie games we saw in Barcelona at PG Connects!
