Publisher behind one of 2023's biggest Soulslikes announces $60 million "best-ever" year just 3 months after laying off 10% of staff

The CEO behind one of 2023's biggest soulslikes has praised his company's "best ever" annual results, barely three months after laying off 10% of his workforce.

Earlier this week, CI Games Group CEO Marek Tymiński announced a $60 million turnover, with profits of $3.5 million (via Game Developer). Those results, which were the result of "a period of continued momentum" capped by the million-selling release of ambitious soulslike Lords of the Fallen, amounted to CI Games' "best year." 

That "best year," however, comes not long after CI Games laid off 10% of its staff. Back in January, it announced the "tough but necessary" decision to let go several developers and the majority of the marketing team in an attempt to build "business strength and stability." Recent fiscal reports state that around more than 180 people currently work at CI Games, suggesting that more than 20 people were made redundant.

That's in spite of two ongoing projects at the company, which had a notable hit in the latter stages of 2023. Lords of the Fallen sold 1.3 million copies between release and the end of December, and that number is only likely to have grown in subsequent months. CI Games clearly had substantial hope for the game, with its director saying he had hopes to make 'Dark Souls 4.5' ahead of release. Whether that lofty ambition was achieved is a matter of personal opinion, but that didn't stop Tymiński from praising Lords of the Fallen as "an undeniable success and a solid result." Plans for follow-up games already seem to be underway, with aims "to attract even more players."

This is just another example of the uncomfortable dichotomy facing the industry at the moment. On the one hand, companies are making a lot of money, yet huge numbers of developers have lost their jobs over the past two years. In perhaps the most egregious example I can think of, GTA 6 publisher Take-Two recently announced 600 layoffs, in spite of the lure of GTA 6 - the hotly-anticipated follow-up to a game that made $8.5 billion - being just over the financial horizon. CI Games has neither 600 staff to layoff nor a cash cow like Grand Theft Auto to rely on, but it remains indicative of a particularly strange trend across the industry.

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