Sony executes major layoffs at its Visual Arts and Malaysia studios

Bad news, yet again, about job losses at video game studios. This time it has been Malaysia Studios and Visual Arts, both owned by Sony. It's unclear how many developers have lost their jobs, but a flurry of new posts on LinkedIn shows it wasn't a minority cut. According to VGC, Visual Arts has already lost a good chunk of its staff in Sony's large-scale layoffs 18 months ago. Some of those affected at Visual Arts Studios had been actively involved in the production of big hits like Marvel's Spider-Man 2, as Visual Arts is a California-based support studio.

As for Malaysia Studios, the news was also sparked by a post on LinkedIn by former Senior Project Manager in the Kuala Lumpur team, who who has asked for our privacy at this difficult time, and describes it as a "workforce reduction" that has taken place.

Just a year ago, Sony also carried out a huge wave of layoffs at other studios such as Naughty Dog, Guerrilla and Insomniac, which laid off another 900 people.