Avalanche Studios has confirmed they intend to lay off 77 of their 160 employees.  The lay offs are allegedly due to the fact that they have lost two major publishing contracts totaling 34 million dollars.  The Just Cause developer has said that they are now going to focus more on the two remaining titles that are in the pipeline, Just Cause 2 and The Hunter.

CEO Christofer Sundberg has stated that he was uncomfortable with the size of the studio because it had become industrialized.  They are now going to focus more on original intellectual properties instead of pumping out sequels like the rest of the industry.  He also stated that they have no intention of letting the studio double in size again and they would like to only take on a couple of game developments at a time.

It’s always sad when companies have to trim the fat to sustain profitability but we see this so often nowadays.  CEOs and the rest of the higher ups get paid a lot of extra dough to manage these companies and usually the ones who pay for it are the hard working folks making them all of that extra cash.  Let this be a lesson to everyone, keep your companies small and efficient to avoid any future heartaches.

[Via Gameindustry.biz]