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Penny’s Big Breakway developer Evening Star lays off six staff members

The same turbulence.

CEO of Evening Star (creators of Pennyā€™s Big Breakaway), Dave Padilla, has announced that the studio has had to part ways with six of its employees. This adds to a growing tally of game developers who have lost their jobs throughout the year.

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In a statement, Padilla says that Evening Star ā€œhas been swept up in the same turbulence that has affected so many of our peers in the games industry for the last year and a half.ā€ It goes on to say that, ā€œDespite our best efforts to secure another project to keep our team together, we are in the unfortunate situation of having to lay off some of the folks that have worked with us for the last few years on Penny’s Big Breakaway.ā€

The Linkedin statement lists the six employees affected and recommends to other employers that they hire them, stating that theyā€™re ā€œbest in class developers who shipped a critically beloved console title.ā€ The list includes two artists, an engineer, two designers, and a producer.

Weā€™ve seen a lot of crass and heartless layoffs over the past couple of years, and while we donā€™t know and canā€™t speculate on exactly how these went down, from the outside, it just seems regrettable. The statement says that, following the release of Pennyā€™s Big Breakaway, Evening Star has had trouble finding a publisher to fund their next project. 

This is actually a rather common problem among developers that has resulted in some studios closed outright. It has been a problem, especially recently, since a lot of the investments made during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns dried up. Hopefully, things will get turned around soon.


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Image of Zoey Handley
Zoey Handley
Staff Writer - Zoey is a gaming gadabout. She got her start blogging with the community in 2018 and hit the front page soon after. Normally found exploring indie experiments and retro libraries, she does her best to remain chronically uncool.