Disco Elysium Dev Suffers Layoffs After New Game's Poor Sales
ZA/UM Hit With Layoffs After Poor Sales Of Zero Parades: For Dead Spies
This article covers a developing story. Continue to check back with us as we will be adding more information as it becomes available.
Disco Elysium developer (well, kind of) ZA/UM has announced that the disappointing sales numbers for Zero Parades: For Dead Spies have resulted in 32 employees being laid off or at risk.
It's easy to assume that the next game from ZA/UM would be an instant hit considering Disco Elysium is widely considered to be a masterpiece, but that really isn't the case. ZA/UM has gone through a frankly ridiculous amount of mostly corporate drama over the past couple of years, with multiple key developers behind Disco being ousted and going on to make their own tribute games.
Although there are certainly still developers who worked on Disco remaining at ZA/UM, all of the changeover basically made Zero Parades: For Dead Spies a poisoned chalice, with many fans refusing to give it the time of day. That has clearly had an impact, as ZA/UM has confirmed that Zero Parades' apparent underperformance is resulting in layoffs at the studio.
ZA/UM Confirms Layoffs As Zero Parades: For Dead Spies Underperforms
"Their Work Has Made A Lasting Difference And Left Its Mark"
Over on Twitter, the official ZA/UM account released a statement confirming that the studio has issued redundancy or at-risk notifications to 32 employees. This is due to the seemingly low commercial performance of Zero Parades: For Dead Spies not enabling ZA/UM to continue to "sustain a studio of our current size".
ZA/UM points out that the low sales figures are despite Zero Parades launching to "critical acclaim". The studio notes that the 32 employees being affected by the layoffs (which were done while consulting and working with the ZA/UM Workers' Alliance) made a "lasting difference" and that their work "left a mark" on Zero Parades and the studio as a whole.
While ZA/UM hasn't shared any sales figures for Zero Parades, SteamDB confirms that it had a peak of just over 3,000 players. That's just one console base, but it does suggest that it reached nowhere near as many players as Disco Elysium did, likely due to all of the drama and boycotting that's gone on with the studio in recent years.
As for the future of ZA/UM, the statement says that, while they change the "shape" of the studio, they don't change its "purpose". It remains to be seen what ZA/UM is going to do next, but I hope the developers affected find work soon, and that the ones remaining don't keep suffering for mistakes that are above them.