Singularity 6, developer of the cozy MMO Palia, is the latest developer to suffer layoffs. According to Polygon's Nicole Carpenter, just under 50 developers, or about a third of the company, have been laid off.

Environmental artist Daphne Fiato tweeted, "See, they fired me," and followed up with "49 people Thanos folded." Other Singularity 6 officials joined in to reveal that they had been laid off, including Brian Ernst, who tweeted that he had worked for the development company for five years; according to MMORPG.com, one developer revealed via LinkedIn that he received the news while on vacation.

Singularity 6 has yet to publicly mention the layoffs, and its last Twitter post was made on April 3, one day before the layoffs occurred; Palia's official account is in the same boat.

Palia just appeared on Steam on March 25 after being an Epic exclusive. The free-to-play MMO was praised for its cozy atmosphere and stress-free cycle of farming and building, but was also criticized for its slow progress, reliance on timers, and limited multiplayer elements. Although not in Early Access, and although the store page lists the game as feature complete, it is in fact still in beta; it currently has just over 3,700 user reviews on Steam, with a rating of "Mixed."

The studio joins a painfully long line of developers who have laid off some of their staff this year. Despite being only four months into the year, the number of layoffs is about to reach last year's number; the Game Industry Layoffs tracker estimates that about 10,500 developers lost their jobs last year. Today, that number is already up to about 8,000, and given the instability of the industry, more jobs are sure to be lost.

We created our own layoff chart earlier this year, showing a trajectory of 16,000 layoffs from January 2023 to January 2024. Since the chart was published, companies such as Relic, Certain Affinities, Sony, and Blackbird Interactive have joined the list.