VRChat to lay off approximately 30 percent of its staff
The popular social app developer is to have overhired in 2021 when the COVID pandemic allowed its popularity to boom.
The developer behind VRChat has announced that it will be cutting 30 percent of its workers in the weeks ahead. A popular social app that allowed people to congregate and interact with VR HMDs in a virtual setting, VRChat gained massive popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a hiring boom at the company. Unfortunately, VRChat CEO Graham Gaylor says the studio overhired, and since the cooldown of COVID restrictions, VRChat’s hype has ebbed enough with it to warrant the layoffs.
VRChat announced its layoffs with a statement on its X account this week. There, the developer laid out the numbers of layoffs and plans to take care of its departing employees:
— VRChat (@VRChat) June 12, 2024
In an email to employees, as obtained by Road to VR, VRChat CEO Graham Gaylor went into deeper details on the reasoning for the layoffs, citing the boom of popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic and overhiring during that period:
VRChat joins a seemingly endless list of tech and gaming companies that have announced layoffs in 2024, with Sumo Digital having announced its own just earlier this week.
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replyTJ Denzer posted a new article, VRChat to lay off approximately 30 percent of its staff
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I know a few folks who were hit in the layoffs, it sucks. Not surprising, though, given how many job postings I saw from them during the pandemic. I love the platform, but even then it seemed crazy to me that they were bringing on so many people.
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VC funding for its early years, VR Chat+ memberships for the last few years, and I assume that they are taking a decent cut of any sales in their creator economy that launched not too long ago. I imagine the VC funding is probably harder to come by these days, so they are going to have to rely more on the other two methods and I'm not sure either can really sustain the platform.
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there aren't a ton of unprofitable consumer tech companies popping off with IPOs these days
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VRChat had staff?
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