ZA/UM Studio Layoffs Follow Poor Sales of Zero Parades
ZA/UM Studio, known for Disco Elysium, has laid off up to 32 employees citing weak commercial performance of its recent spy RPG Zero Parades: For Dead Spies.
Up to 32 employees at ZA/UM Studio have been made redundant or received at-risk notices, the developer and publisher of Disco Elysium and Zero Parades: For Dead Spies announced on social media. The layoffs come just two months after the launch of their latest title in May, with the studio attributing the decision to the game's "commercial performance", which "has not enabled us to sustain a studio of our current size".
According to SteamDB, the espionage RPG peaked at 3,177 concurrent players shortly after release, but numbers have steadily declined since. For fans of the critically acclaimed Disco Elysium, the news may not come as a total surprise. Since the success of that narrative-heavy RPG in 2019, ZA/UM has faced a series of conflicts, including the firing of key team members, a lawsuit over intellectual property theft, and accusations of a hostile work environment for women.
Several former developers subsequently formed their own studio, Longdue, which is also working on a narrative-first game. In its layoff announcement, ZA/UM stated it continues to consult with the ZA/UM Workers' Alliance. The layoffs add to a broader trend of job cuts in the video game industry in 2024.
