WWE, NBA and Lego 2K Drive developers reportedly hit by second wave of layoffs in less than six months
Multiple staff said to have lost their jobs at Visual Concepts Austin
Visual Concepts Austin, the 2K Games studio behind sports franchises including WWE and NBA, as well as last year’s kart racing game Lego 2K Drive, has reportedly laid off a number of employees. The cuts come fewer than six months after the last round of layoffs at the Texas outlet.
Among those affected was art manager Brad Bowling, who posted on LinkedIn (via Game Developer) that “a group of very talented developers” had been let go from the studio. Software engineer Sydney F. similarly confirmed she had been laid off alongside “several other amazing colleagues”, with the exact number of developers affected still to be confirmed. The studio and owner 2K Games are yet to comment publicly on the layoffs.
“The games industry bloodletting continues,” Bowling said. “Over the past 23 years of making game art, I have seen some downturns but nothing like this.”
The latest layoffs come less than half a year after a previous wave of reported job cuts at the Austin studio affecting departments including QA, design and production.
Last year Visual Concepts Austin released wrestling game WWE 2K23 and charming kart racer Lego 2K Drive, having previously also worked on basketball game NBA 2K21.
Visual Concepts Austin was formerly the games division of HookBang, which was acquired by 2K and their parent company Take-Two in early 2021 and rebranded to assist veteran developers Visual Concepts in working on 2K’s annual sports titles.
The Visual Concepts Austin layoffs join more than 6,000 reported job losses across the games industry so far in 2024, following more than 10,000 last year.