Atari accounce staff layoffs

An official statement has announced corporate restructuring of the troubled games publisher Atari, which will result in a worldwide workforce reduction of approximately 20%. It is likely that a significant proportion of the redundancies will be in the US, particularly as CEO Bruno Bonnell has previously indicated his belief that the US headcount is too high.

No concrete information is available on which divisions of the company will be affected, or what locations will be hardest hit. Presumably, they intend to announce this information to employees first. Nobody likes to read about losing their job on the internet before they've even been given notice.

In an interview in the UK trade-paper MCV, Bonnell is quoted as saying, We have about 250 staff in the US. And that is too many. There has to be some adjustment...

Paradigm and Shiny Entertainment, both located in the US, are two likely targets for layoffs, with the company's corporate office in New York another likely site of job losses.

Things must have changed at Shiny since the infamous days of its excesses, a possible target of satire in the fake 'Riot' documentary. We can be fairly safe in assuming that Bruno Bonnell whose custodianship has seen the company's fortunes turn from boom to almost bust will keep his job, while various Atari producers, developers, QA, and sales staff will be looking for positions very shortly.