The carnage continues. At least two area technology companies that we follow at Xconomy have had significant layoffs this week—both at least in part because of the worsening economic climate. Here’s a quick summary of the news:
—Kirkland, WA-based Amaze Entertainment, the console-game developer studio owned by Foundation 9 Entertainment (F9E), has laid off about one-third of its staff, according to multiple sources close to the situation. Amaze had roughly 100 employees before the cuts, one source said. A phone call and e-mails sent to the company were not returned. F9E says it is the largest independent game developer in the world, and has shipped more than 500 titles for every major publisher in the industry.
—Seattle-based Evri, the Paul Allen-backed startup that’s trying to reinvent how people browse the Web, has laid off about one-quarter of its staff, as first reported by TechFlash and VentureBeat. As of last July, Evri had about 35 employees and was hiring. Earlier this week, the company announced a partnership with The Times of London to put its article recommendation widget on selected stories online. At that time, Evri founder and CEO Neil Roseman said the company had recently added one position, bringing the number of applied scientists on its staff to four.
This afternoon, Roseman said in an e-mail, “In this economy we need to make sure we can take advantage of the success we are starting to have. Any company, large or small, that isn’t seriously examining things would be strange. We just want to be in a position to build a great product and company, and return value to all of our investors and owners—which includes the current and former employees.”
