Palia studio Singularity 6 has laid off 36 employees

Palia developer Singularity 6 has laid off 36 employees.

The latest cuts at the Los Angeles-based studio follow another round of layoffs which saw 49 employees lose their jobs in April, according to Polygon’s Nicole Carpenter.

“Unfortunately we have had to restructure and reduce the size of our team as we stay focused on supporting Palia and serving our community long term,” reads a statement issued to Game Developer by a Singularity 6 spokesperson.

“We thank our departing team for all their work; we are committed to providing the best assistance and transition we can. We hope the industry will provide homes for these talented colleagues.”

Free-to-play, cozy sim MMO game Palia was released for Nintendo Switch in December 2023 and hit Steam in March, six months after an open beta launched on PC. The game features cross-play and cross-progression.

It’s been another bad week for job losses across the games industry. On Monday, Japanese Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix announced plans to make layoffs in American and Europe.

Canada-based Dauntless and Fae Farm developer Phoenix Labs also reportedly cut around 140 jobs this week.

Game developer Farhan Noor, who has been tracking job cuts dating back to the start of 2022 on videogameslayoffs.com, estimates that around 10,500 games industry employees were laid off last year. And less than five months into 2024, some 9,700 jobs cuts are already thought to have been confirmed.