Visual Concepts Austin staff reportedly facing layoffs

It has been reported that staff at 2K-owned Visual Concepts Austin studio have been laid off.

This comes via a LinkedIn job posted last night (February 6) by former art director Brad Bowling (via game developer), who said “a very talented group of developers” were affected.

“Well…the bloodshed in the gaming industry continues,” Bowling wrote. “Today, Visual Concepts Austin laid off me and a group of very talented developers. I’ve had a great time over the past two years working with some of the best game developers in the industry. Over the past 23 years of creating video game artwork, I’ve experienced a few slowdowns, but nothing like this.

As of this writing, neither 2K nor Visual Concepts Austin has publicly verified that layoffs have occurred, but TechRadar Gaming has reached out to 2K for comment, and we will update this story if we receive a response.

Visual Concept Austin, all by itself description“works on almost everything [Visual Concepts has] obtained: NBA 2K, WWE 2K, LEGO 2K Playerand other projects that help move the company forward.

Even though it’s only the beginning of February, 2024 has unfortunately already been rife with reports of layoffs across the video game industry. Last week it was confirmed that Artificer, a studio owned by Devolver Digital, lays off 28 employeeswhile last month, workforce reductions were announced by Dead by daylight developer Interactive behavior, Lords of the Fallen publisher CI Gamesand more.

Elsewhere, huge staff cuts were announced in early January by live streaming service Twitch and gaming software development company Unity. More than 500 Twitch staff members affectedwhile around 1,800 people (around 25% of the workforce) were affected at Unity.

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