Sulake reportedly lays of 25% off Finnish workforce as it switches Habbo to open platform strategy

Finnish website Dome.fi is reporting social studio Sulake – best known for online community Habbo – has laid off 25 percent of its workforce in the country.

The site claims somewhere in the region of 40-60 people are to be let go.

The jobs are to be terminated on 16 March, with CEO Paul LaFontaine hinting the cull forms part of a wider shift in strategy in an interview with Artic Startup.

Outsourcing ambitions

Though LaFontaine - who joined from Playdom in September 2011 - didn't detail numbers, the site claims he confirmed the company is in the process of 'modernising its strategy' - a process that involves opening up its community to additional parties.

As such, Sulake is apparently moving towards a model where the Habbo community can be utilised by third parties, allowing them to 'develop additional services' for the platform.

In this manner, Sulake is taking inspiration from Japanese companies such as GREE and DeNA, who opened up their social mobile platforms to third party game developers - generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

The company also recently released two iOS games, which linked back with unlockable content in Habbo.

How this relates to any layoffs is unclear. LaFontaine has confirmed, however, that no R&D jobs will be lost, with functions within the department remaining unaffected.

The news comes after CTO Osma Ahvenlampi announced his departure from the studio via Twitter, though it's claimed his decision has nothing to do with the current layoffs.

[source: Artic Startup]