Lego 2K Drive developer Visual Concepts hit with layoffs

According to multiple employees on LinkedIn, Visual Concepts has laid off a number of staff at its Austin, TX office.

"Unfortunately, myself and several talented people were laid off at Visual Concepts Austin today," wrote executive producer Joseph Cowan. At time of writing, these layoffs appear to only affect the Austin staff across departments such as production, design, and QA. 

Visual Concepts has a variety of subsidiaries stationed around the globe in locations such as Korea and Budapest. US-wise, the developer is also set up in California locales Los Angeles, Novato, and south California.

Founded in 1988, the 35-year-old company is best associated with 2K's various sports games, mainly the NBA and WWE 2K franchises. Its most recent releases are WWE 2K23 (which released back in March) and Lego 2K Drive (May). 

Within the last several months, layoffs have been occurring within the game industry, and in larger numbers. At the end of August, all of Volition was closed down by parent company Embracer, and additional jobs were cut at Gearbox not long after.

Just yesterday, September 11, it was reported that MX vs. ATV developer Rainbow Studios (which is also under Embracer) laid off staff as part of Embracer's restructuring.

Game Developer has reached out to 2K for comment, and will update the story when a response is given.