Schell Games has cut more jobs. The Pittsburgh studio, known for the VR spy puzzler I Expect You To Die and for co-developing Among Us VR, announced its second round of layoffs this year in a statement on LinkedIn, GamesIndustry.biz reports.
“We’re very sad to say that due to this challenging time in the game industry, Schell Games has found it necessary to lay off a significant number of employees in order to ensure a sustainable future for our studio,” the company said. “While this will enable us to stay stable moving forward, it is incredibly painful as we are losing some fantastic talent.”
The studio did not say how many people lost their jobs. The affected roles span engineering, art and design, sound, marketing, IT support, research and QA, which suggests the cuts reached across most of the company rather than a single team.
Schell Games first laid off staff in August, which was the first time it had reduced headcount since it was founded in 2002. That makes the second round more striking: a company that went more than two decades without layoffs has now had two in a matter of months.
Founder and CEO Jesse Schell has been one of the more outspoken industry leaders on the subject. In a 2024 interview with GamesIndustry.biz, he argued that studios can usually avoid layoffs if they “prioritise stability,” and criticized companies that cut staff mainly because everyone else was doing it. “Layoffs are like an avalanche,” he said at the time, describing how firms use a wave of cuts elsewhere as cover for their own.
Beyond its entertainment games, Schell Games has a long track record in educational VR and has been one of the most consistent developers on Meta’s Quest headsets. The VR market has been shrinking in recent years, and studios that depend on it have had a rough stretch.
The cuts land in a grim week for game industry jobs. Microsoft’s recent Xbox reductions hit id Software hard, with its studio head saying the Doom developer is “doing great” despite losing about half of its staff. Schell Games has not said whether any projects have been canceled or delayed as a result of the layoffs.
