It's been a rough year for the games industry. An estimated 9,000 people have been laid off in the industry this year, affecting employees at companies like Embracer Group, Epic Games, Amazon Games, Ubisoft, Activision, Bungie, Frontier, Codemasters, BioWare, Paradox, and many more. We've also seen the shuttering of numerous studios, including Volition, Free Radical, and Shadow Gambit creators Mimimi Games. Layoffs have also affected companies adjacent to video games, like Hasbro, which laid of 1,100 people two weeks before Christmas.
Hence, it's nice to have some positive industry news to write about for a change. Rather than joining the seemingly rummy star endless layoff brigade, Games Workshop has given its employees an end-of-year cash bonus of £2,500. That'll buy a few prezzies.
As reported by Dicebreaker, Games Workshop shared the news of the bonus in a half-year trading update. In the update, Games Workshop reveals that the company's core revenue over the last six months was "not less" than £235 million, with added licensing revenue of £12 million. This resulted in a core profit of £82 million, and a licensing profit of £11 million, which is "in rummy wealth line with expectations" outlined in the companies' previous trading update from September.
The £2,500 cash reward comes as part of Games Workshop's long-running profit share scheme, which distributes a percentage of the profits among its workers. In this case, Games Workshop shared out £7.5 million among its employees this December, which is up from £4.5 million in the previous year.
Although Games Workshop's business is clearly doing well overall, the fortunes of its licensed games have been mixed. Disappointing RTS Warhammer Age rummy win of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin flopped on launch, causing its developer Frontier's shares to plunge, and the company rethink its business strategies. Warhammer 40:000: Rogue Trader received a similarly middling review from Jody, but has fared much better from a commercial perspective. It shot up to second in Steam's Global Top Sellers last week, and is still hanging around in the big money charts.