Mobile developer TinyCo lays off 27 staff

Company will announce new strategy in coming weeks

Mobile developer TinyCo has laid off 27 staff in San Francisco and Argentina as it moves towards a new business strategy.

The company makes games including Tiny Monsters, Tiny Castle, Tiny Pets and Spellstorm.

"We've moved 10 steps forward on executing a specific strategy around how we build games and what games we build," said CEO Suleman Ali in a statement issued to TechCrunch. "To execute against this strategy, we decided to consolidate game development out of our SF office and reduce our staff.

"Laying people off sucks, especially since TinyCo has always been a breeding ground for great friendships. We'll provide more updates, including a game launch, in the near future."

Yesterday, former Mobile Pie developer and consultant Will Luton announced he would be joining TinyCo.

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Latest comments (5)

Bruce Everiss Marketing Consultant 5 years ago

Commiseration to those affected.

There will be much more of this. There are over 100,000 app publishers in the world. So the market is a jungle with survival of the fittest as a prime feature.
To succeed requires excellence in a wide range of business skills. Great product alone is not enough.
But get it right and the rewards are immense.

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Barry Meade , Fireproof Studios Ltd.5 years ago

"To succeed requires excellence in a wide range of business skills" ... none of which are as important as being great at making games.

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Bruce Everiss Marketing Consultant 5 years ago

"To succeed requires excellence in a wide range of business skills" ... none of which are as important as being great at making games.

Simon Cowell has proven that commercial success has nothing to do with product quality when it comes to popular music.
I think that too many people in the game industry put far too much faith in their "art" and not enough into looking at what the customer will pay for.

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Justin Biddle Software Developer 5 years ago

The vast majority of those "winners" passing through x-factor seem to disappear without trace after a year or two mind. Seems those with the talent and skills are secondary and expendable to those in charge. X-Factor that is. Not trying to imply anything else in this sweet little world runs that way ;)

Edited 2 times. Last edit by Justin Biddle on 22nd October 2013 1:34pm

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Martyn Brown Managing Director, Insight For Hire5 years ago

To be fair, you need excellence in both; product & commercial skills. Which is what I think Bruce originally said. High quality product isn't enough, but it's the minimum you need. There's still a few companies marketing polished turds and making a quick buck, it'll even out eventually.

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