Perfect World reduces Motiga to just core staff

Motiga, the studio behind free-to-play MOBA Gigantic, has been significantly scaled back by its parent company Perfect World.

Mass redundancies at the studio have been commonplace over the years. Most recently it released one fifth of its workforce in March of this year, mere months before the official launch of Gigantic.

While the number of layoffs has yet to be confirmed, according to a tweet from one former employee, it appears to be around 70.

Speaking to Destructoid, Motiga founder and CEO Chris Chung said that the studio's layoffs were a "corporate decision".

"Perfect World as a public company has a profitability goal and they decided to cut parts of the company that were not profitable," he said. "In short, Gigantic was not making enough revenue."

According to Chung, other Perfect World studios will be affected by this decision, but didn't share any details.

"Gigantic will be left at the hands of a maintenance team composed of few dedicated folks at Motiga," he added. "They are [an] awesome group of people that will be working on the game until some time in the future when it doesn't make sense anymore."

Update: An earlier version of this story indicated that all of Motiga had been shut down. That's not 100% accurate and we apologize for the error. Perfect World issued us this statement, "Following the news that Motiga has reduced the staff of its studio, Perfect World Entertainment can confirm that as the publisher of Gigantic, the game will continue to be available on our platforms. A core team of developers remains at Motiga, who will work with us to support the game and its players, including moving full steam ahead with the upcoming November update and future content. We cannot thank everyone enough for their contributions in making Gigantic the outstanding experience it is today."