B station, TapTap and many other game companies shrink, the underlying logic behind the "fancy layoffs"?

Not only Tencent, Baidu, Byte and other Internet companies, but also game companies have also blown up a "wave of layoffs".

Songguo Finance learned that according to the news of Lei Feng Network on February 10, a number of game companies have recently reported news of layoffs. A few days ago, the surging news reported that many game companies, including Station B, Perfect World, Heartbeat Network and other game companies, have laid off employees of different scales from the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022.

According to the record of investor relations activities disclosed by Perfect World in January this year, the company will streamline and tune the game team in 2021, adjusting some teams that do not match the company's future direction and tone. Hundreds of people have been optimized in the fourth quarter of last year.

Perfect World said that as of January this year, the company's research and development team has about 4,000 people, and it is likely to decline further in the future. According to the calculation of up to 1,000 people, it means that the company's R & D team has laid off up to 25%.

According to the internal employees of Station B, between the end of last year and the beginning of this year, Station B had personnel adjustments, of which the proportion of layoffs in the game department was close to 20%, and the number of layoffs in the R& D team was larger. The year-end bonus for some employees of the game department of Station B is only half a month's salary.

In addition, at the end of January, there were market rumors that TapTap's parent company Heartbeat Network was laying off employees, nearly one-third of the team. This news was officially responded to by Huang Yimeng, CEO of Heartbeat. He admitted on Twitter that there are indeed team adjustments, adding or subtracting according to actual business needs, but "there is no so-called one-size-fits-all".

In fact, not only B station, Perfect World, TapTap and other game companies, 37 Games, Byte Games and other manufacturers have also carried out different degrees of layoffs in 2021, and Byte even cut off some departments.

The wave of layoffs set off by Internet companies has continued from the beginning of 2021 to the present, involving many enterprises and fields. According to incomplete statistics, since the beginning of 2021, nearly 30 Internet companies have carried out different degrees of layoffs, including Tencent, iQiyi, Baidu, Ctrip, Sina, Byte and other major manufacturers.

The reason why there will be such a large-scale "wave of layoffs", on the one hand, is related to the Internet environment in 2021, and the attitude towards Internet companies from multiple levels such as policy and anti-monopoly is relatively tense; on the other hand, the Internet fundamentals are stalled, and the growth rate of related business revenue of many companies has declined to varying degrees.

This time, B station, perfect world, TapTap and other game companies to lay off employees, the logic behind the rapid expansion, the actual business needs do not need too many people to run and develop. In addition, the current market environment of the game industry, the revenue of many game companies has also been affected to varying degrees. However, the layoffs ultimately led to the adjustment of corporate strategic planning.