Earlier this week, The Walt Disney Company announced that it has closed down the LucasArts games studio and laid off a large number of employees. While layoffs and studio closings in the games industry have not been rare over the past year, the closure of LucasArts came as a shock to many gamers who remember classic games such as Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island, and a plethora of Star Wars Games. Today it has become clear that Disney is not limiting its layoffs to its newly-acquired LucasFilm properties.
According to a Reuters report, Disney will be expanding its layoffs to its studio and consumer products divisions. According to Reuters’ unnamed “two people with knowledge of the matter,” the layoffs will begin within two weeks and will primarily affect marketing and home video units, though the “animation wing” will also be affected.
It is unclear whether Pixar Animation Studios will be affected by the layoffs. Walt Disney Studios just announced this week that Pixar is creating a sequel to Finding Nemo due out in 2015, titled Finding Dory.
Reuters’ sources stated that Disney began conducting an internal review last year to identify jobs that have become superfluous due to technological improvements or recent acquisitions.