FuturLab lays off employees after canceling new project

Focusing efforts and resources to deliver the best possible work on a highly anticipated sequel for the community is an excellent approach from a product perspective, ensuring that the studio's next title reaches the market with a high level of quality. FuturLab confirmed the layoff of seven employees after canceling a new game that was not directly related to the successful PowerWash Simulator franchise.

The company CEO, Kirsty Rigden, stated to the publication This Week in Video Games that the project was canceled during the pre-production phase.

The executive justified that the production cost would exceed the estimated revenue projection, making continuation financially unviable for the British studio.

Rigden emphasized that FuturLab is fully committed to making PowerWash Simulator 2 the best game possible, while testing prototypes of new ideas for future productions.

The executive regretted the layoffs, classifying the decision as difficult and painful due to the involvement of talented, long-standing professionals within the company, but claimed that the measure was necessary to safeguard the company's long-term financial health.

When asked if the layoffs followed formal procedures for cost-cutting redundancies, Rigden stated that she could not disclose details about confidential and legally binding processes.

Anonymous sources reported to This Week in Video Games that the project cancellation — which had been in development for two or three years — was communicated internally at the end of June.

The reports indicate that the affected team went weeks without new assignments before the layoffs were finalized in July.

Direct leaders and team managers were allegedly not informed in advance about the absence of their direct subordinates or the reasons for the layoffs.

In a meeting held in August, FuturLab's COO, Chris Mehers, reportedly informed that the developer was undergoing an organizational restructuring process.

According to the same sources, employees were instructed to avoid the word layoff and refer to the affected colleagues as those who left.

The management allegedly assured that those laid off were not needed for the production of PowerWash Simulator 2 and that the cleaning game's schedule would not be impacted.

The justification given for not including managers in the selection of those laid off was to spare them any feelings of guilt and avoid the stress of two weeks of uncertainty about job stability.

In a previous interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Rigden had discussed the future of the studio and the project that ended up being canceled.

The executive had expressed the intention to always keep two projects simultaneously underway to avoid turning FuturLab into a studio focused on a single title.

Maintaining the company's stability to deliver a sequel at the level of PowerWash Simulator 2 is a sensible move to ensure the studio's survival in the current market. On the other hand, FuturLab's behavior of forbidding the use of the word layoff, isolating managers, and leaving professionals hanging without work before the cuts reflects a euphemistic and cold corporate stance, attempting to mask the mismanagement of a three-year project discarded at the expense of the workers themselves.