Hello Neighbor Label TinyBuild Lays Off Entire Versus Evil Publisher Staff

TinyBuild, the games label behind the Hello Neighbor series, has laid off the entire staff of Versus Evil, an indie publisher under the TinyBuild umbrella, just days before the holidays. This news comes from various former Versus Evil employees on Twitter. 

“Unfortunately our parent company has made the decision to lay off the entire team here at Versus Evil,” former Versus Evil community manager Chris Trippi writes in a tweet. Another former marketing and community manager with the publisher writes in a tweet, “tinybuild just laid off myself and the entire Versus Evil team.” 

The official Versus Evil Twitter account posted the following: 

“Today is a sad day. After 10 wonderful years, Versus Evil is shutting its doors. We’ve loved bringing you the best indie games we could find and sharing so many happy memories with you all, our amazing community. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for everything.” 

Various others have shared similar tweets sharing the news, too. 

TinyBuild has not addressed the layoffs. 

Versus Evil was founded in 2013 to support and publish indie games. Its “About” page says, “Versus Evil boasts a full suite of services to support the indie games they publish; marketing, PR, influencer outreach, social media, community, QA, localization, and development services to reach other platforms.” 

Versus Evil has published games on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and mobile platforms, and has worked with indie studios from around the world, including places like North America, South America, and Europe. Versus Evil-published games include First Class Trouble and the Switch versions of Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. 

These Versus Evil layoffs join an unfortunately ever-growing list of layoffs affecting workers in 2023 in the games industry and games-adjacent industries. Last week, Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering parent company Hasbro laid off 1,100 employees, and that same week, Embracer Group officially shuttered its reformed TimeSplitters team, Free Radical Design. 

A few weeks ago, 505 Games parent company Digital Bros laid off 30 percent of its staff. 

Last month, Amazon Games laid off 180 staff members. In early November, we learned that Ubisoft laid off more than 100 employees. The week before that, roughly 100 employees were laid off at Destiny 2 developer Bungie. 

In January, Microsoft laid off 10,000 employees amidst its ongoing $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which it completed last month. 

In August, Striking Distance Studios, the team behind last year’s The Callisto Protocol, laid off more than 30 employees, and that same month, Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare laid off 50 employees, including long-time studio veterans. The following month, in September, Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios laid off roughly 45% of its staff. 

Just last month, The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog laid off at least 25 employees, and Telltale Games underwent layoffs as well, although an actual number of laid-off employees has not yet been revealed. And in late October, Dreams developer Media Molecule laid off 20 employees.

The hearts of Game Informer staff are with everyone affected by these layoffs.