Kabam shutting down Imperium: Galactic War, lays off game dev team

Free-to-play gaming publisher plans to cease the operation of online social game Imperium: Galactic War, laying off employees associated with the game's development at its Austin, Texas studio, Kabam corporate communications VP Steve Swasey confirmed with Polygon.

While Swasey as unable to comment on the exact number of staff departing the studio, Gamasutra reports that 23 employees at the Austin studio were affected. Citing a source familiar with the situation, the figure consists of 20 developers, two QA employees and a community manager.

"We're not commenting on the number of employees who are leaving Kabam but I will confirm Kabam continues to have about 50 employees in Austin and 650 worldwide," he told Polygon. "In fact, Kabam is hiring for more than 70 jobs in offices in San Francisco, Beijing, Seoul, Berlin, Vancouver -- and Austin."

Kabam laid off "small number of employees in the overall employee base" in June as it realigned itself into mobile development. According to Swasey, some people were laid off as their positions did not align with the company's new direction, saying that the company tried to find new positions for everyone affected.