02-22-2019, 10:02 AM
There were definitely layoffs, I know some people who were affected. I don't know the scope either. It sounds like the package was moderately generous.
Speculation: The why is for cash flow reasons. They got a lot of VC money, but ramping up production of a consumer product is expensive. Now that the product is out they can be less aggressive about R&D and more aggressive with marketing and (hopefully) sales. It may be that early sales are not what they hoped but this is a common pattern in video games especially but also other tech industries: Big team to get something out the door fairly quickly, then shed many to reduce burn rate.
Speculation: The why is for cash flow reasons. They got a lot of VC money, but ramping up production of a consumer product is expensive. Now that the product is out they can be less aggressive about R&D and more aggressive with marketing and (hopefully) sales. It may be that early sales are not what they hoped but this is a common pattern in video games especially but also other tech industries: Big team to get something out the door fairly quickly, then shed many to reduce burn rate.