Gameforge Berlin suffers 20 layoffs

Online game studio Gameforge Berlin is set to layoff 20 employees as the developer continues to struggle financially after a number of game cancellations.

As reported by GI, staff affected include those in product development and communications, although some are believed to have be asked to move to the studio’s Karlsruhe branch.

Departues also include the likes of Business development director Andreas Peltret, corporate communications director Axel Schmidt and director of product PR Marco Neubert.

News of the layoffs comes after Gameforge cancelled free-to-play browser MMO Star Trek: Infinite Space in August as the title failed to gain traction amongst marketers and publishers.

"Since Autumn 2011 we’ve been trying hard to find a publishing partner for Star Trek: Infinite Space, unfortunately our efforts did not result in success," read a statement on the game’s website at the time.

"Therefore we made the difficult decision to cancel this project completely. Cancelling this project is a very sad thing for us to do as well. Unfortunately sometimes a good concept for a game cannot be realised according to plan in a successful way."

In November last year, Gameforge was also forced into cancelling another one of its free-to-play titles, Katsuro, after the studio axed around 100 staff as part of downsizing operations at the firm.