Major Layoffs hit Strife developer S2 Games

Michael Dunaway
By Michael Dunaway, News Editor Posted:
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In some unfortunate news that is all too common in this industry, S2 Games has just confirmed a large portion of the Strife development team has been laid off, due to what S2 calls a "byproduct of mis-management prior to Open Beta."

The news of S2's layoffs were originally announced on Friday by an anonymous user on Reddit, before being confirmed today in an official post on the Strife forums. According to S2, the layoffs were not caused by poor numbers from Strife's recent Open Beta launch, or falling player numbers, but due to the aforementioned mismanagement, which saw Strife's Open Beta team expand to accommodate roughly 80 members.

This was apparently too many, as S2 believed the team size was more of what one should expect from an already established MOBA, one whose had time to grow out of its Open Beta infancy. As a result, out of the 80 or so developers on the team, around 50 of them now remain, something that S2 says was "never the plan".

Going forward the studio says the remaining team is "extremely optimistic for the future of Strife", and mentioned the devs would "learn from [their] mistakes and grow S2 Games more responsibly". S2 also apologized to those directly affected "for the mistakes that led to this event", before stating the studio had "taken measures to help them as much as possible through their transition".

Our condolences go out to all those those affected by the layoffs.

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About the Author

Michael Dunaway
Michael Dunaway, News Editor

Michael Dunaway has been part of the MMOBomb team for years and has covered practically every major Free-to-Play MMO title since 2009.

More Stories by Michael Dunaway

Discussion (17)

Trumbles 9 years ago
Lel, you'd think a MOBA developer would understand the concept of overexpansion.

Jellopy 9 years ago
"You made a game and put us on the charts, now gtfo" Hope the head of the company ends up on the streets after this.

mobaboo 9 years ago
To many Moba games now. The genre is becoming flooded just like the MMO market . There just isn't enough players for all these moba games. Most will stick with LOL or DOTA.

Duty14 9 years ago
I don't like strife. I got into the game from the beginning and tried to like it but I always gave up on it. My impression is that the game has bad mechanics, weak diversity in gameplay possibilities, weak diversity in heroes and their potential, i don't like the artistic design and ideas., and a few new changes witch in my opinion are minor don't make it "the 2nd generation moba "...

In my opinion this game is wannabe Lol clone with some minor changes but even so it lacks in creative ideas and mechanics. In this state as it is now its potential is below Lol or Dota and even for casual play there is the Smite game witch is way more fun and dynamic. For me Strife is like every other wannabe mobas out there...( even though the S2 games had experience before this with moba genre and should have done better )

anip 9 years ago
another game hit by layoffs... looks like layoffing is the trend these days...

Kbc 9 years ago
maybe this game gets some interessting heroes now, in which this game laks alot. Now after everyone is scared for his work place :>

DatGuy 9 years ago
I seriously think that the MOBA market is extremely saturated at the moment. We already have tons of MOBAs out there besides LoL and DOTA and there are more coming in the next few months (like EA's MOBA).

Why not make something else? Savage 3 would have been a great idea.

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xCROOKEDx 9 years ago
I hope the best for those laid off, but I'm honestly not that surprised.. S2Games has always been a studio that scraped by, and they never seemed to be totally on-point with anything.

Not that they are a bad studio... just a bit misfocused.

GMALONZO 9 years ago
I love Strife.

bigcracker 9 years ago
Strife is a waste of money in my opinion. People have Dota and Lol why would you want to play a game like this? They should of made Savage 3 that game would of brought people in.

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