Kabam lays off 8% of its mobile game devs

Today San Francisco-based mobile publisher and developer Kabam (Marvel Contest of Champions) has laid off 8 percent of its development staff in a bid to move the company away from single-player titles and let it focus exclusively on multiplayer games, its CEO Kevin Chou tells VentureBeat. 

It is not apparently obvious how many developers that represents, though Kabam's LinkedIn profile says it has 800 employees worldwide (many of whom are not developers, presumably). 

“Our view is that the players are at the heart of the game, and massively multiplayer games are our core business,” Chou told VentureBeat. “We are looking at 2017 and 2018, and are being very purposeful."

Chou also told the site that it spends $14 million per game it develops.

The company also appears to be saying goodbye to further titles using the Fast and the Furious license, thanks to this move. 

“I feel good about having a clear strategy,” Chou told VentureBeat. “This will define Kabam for the next several years.”

These aren't the only big changes to come to the company in recent times; after securing a $120 million investment from Chinese internet giant Alibaba in 2014, it offloaded its legacy social game business and, later, divested a number of its former mobile hits, in a "continuation of our strategy of fewer, bigger, bolder games," Chou said at the time.