I hate articles that start out this way, but here it goes: Raven Software, developers of the recently released Wolfenstein, confirmed this morning that they will be laying off around 30 to 56 people. Considering that they only had 180 staffers to begin with, that’s a pretty significant chunk of workers. According to Raven and Activision, this was to reflect the developer’s upcoming release schedule, which will be significantly lighter since X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Wolfenstein are out. All they have left in development at the moment is Singularity, which was recently delayed until 2010.

Other reports, however, state that the layoffs were actually a result of Wolfenstein being over budget and not selling as well as they would have liked. This is pretty unfortunate, and I think that the supernatural WWII shooter would have performed better if Raven had met the game’s original early August release date, as opposed to the week before Batman: Arkham Asylum came out and every other game in existence was forgotten. Then again, the game has only been out for a week, so maybe that’s jumping the gun a bit. Either way, I hope all of the former Raven employees can get back on their feet quickly, and that we stop hearing so many stories of mass layoffs in the video game industry, because it’s really depressing.

[Source]