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Harmonix Lays Off 37 As CEO Alex Rigopulos Steps Aside
After successfully reaching its Kickstarter goal for Amplitude, Harmonix has laid off 37 employees and replaced its CEO. Head of publishing and business operations Steve Janiak will be taking over leadership of the studio.
We reached out to the company for comment and were provided a statement. “Harmonix is in the process of restructuring our organization to bring it into alignment with our current and future product development plans,” a representative told Game Informer via email. “Unfortunately, this means making the difficult decision to reduce the number of full-time staff. We sincerely appreciate the work of each and every one of these employees. Harmonix is working to ensure that those affected are well taken care of as we make this change.”
Rigopulos will stay on board as chief creative officer. Development on current titles is unaffected and this is unrelated to Microsoft’s recent decision to offer an Xbox One without Kinect..
Harmonix also announced today that it is taking its music-based shooter, Chroma, back to the drawing board. “Based on the terrific feedback we got from all of you in the community, as well as our own analysis, we have concluded that Chroma will need some substantial retooling to be the game we want it to be,” the company said to testers in an email. “We remain passionately committed to the high-level vision, and we think there are some very successful mechanics and systems in the existing build.”
The Chroma test servers will remain live until June 4.
Our Take
Our thoughts are with those who find themselves out of work as a result of the reduction in workforce.
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