China’s mobile gaming giant Tencent has closed its US studio Team Kaiju and reassigned a number of staff to other projects at the company.
The news was initially broken on LinkedIn by an alleged former employee, as reported by Eurogamer, which claimed the studio had been shut down as early as June.
The anonymous leaker noted that the official Team Kaiju website is out of action and the company’s LinkedIn is now unavailable. Tencent’s TiMi Studio Group has now confirmed the closure to GamesIndustry.biz.
Times are changing
Team Kaiju launched as a subsidiary of TiMi Studio Group, itself a subsidiary of Tencent, in 2020 and was supposed to play a key part in the Chinese conglomerate’s international expansion plans.
Fortunately for the Team Kaiju staff, most have been reassigned to other projects under Tencent’s wing as opposed to suffering layoffs, which have been common through 2023.
“As part of this decision, we’ve moved many of our teammates to other projects within Tencent and TiMi and said goodbye to a few talented teammates,” said a TiMi Group representative.
“TiMi remains committed to making games for global audiences and will continue to hire and work on our other game projects in North America. We thank every member of Team Kaiju for their effort, passion, and professionalism.”
