Los Angeles-based esports and gaming company 100 Thieves laid off some of its staff this week, as the company adjusted its workforce announced plans to separate its drink brand Juvee and the game development operations from its core business; or more precisely, it is spinning off those operations into their own entities. News of these layoffs first surfaced on social media as affected employees announced that they were no longer with the company.
Affected employees are being provided severance and help with job placement, a 100 Thieves representative told The Esports Advocate via a direct message Thursday, though specific details were not provided. Specific details about just how many employees have been affected by this most recent round of layoffs or what departments they were from were also not revealed.
In a lengthy statement published on X/Twitter, 100 Thieves President and COO John Robinson explained why the company made these decisions:
Today we announced that we’re spinning off Juvee and our 100 Thieves Game Development studio, and reducing the size of the 100 Thieves team. We’re making these changes because we believe it’s time for 100 Thieves to refocus on our core business and do less, better.
During the esports franchising era, we saw tremendous growth in our esports business & our brand and were fortunate to be able to make investments beyond that core. As the economic landscape has changed over the last two years, the growth of our business did not keep pace with the growth of our organization. We cannot afford as large of an organization as before and that responsibility falls on me and Matt.
As we look ahead, Matt [referring to co-founder Matthew Nadeshot” Hagg] and I believe there is a clear path forward for 100 Thieves – we need to refocus on the original promise we made to our fans: championship esports, great content, and an apparel brand they are proud to wear.
Juvee and our Game Studio have made a lot of progress through our incubation, so we’re excited for their futures as independent companies and we will be cheering for them as always. We’ll share more updates on these businesses over the coming months.
100 Thieves is committed to making esports sustainable, and to get there we need to learn from these experiences. We don’t have all the answers today, this is just the beginning of a new chapter. But these changes will help 100 Thieves become a healthier company and ensure that we’re focusing our money and attention on the most important part of our business – the core.
While 100 Thieves is working on an unannounced game title, the company showed what its game development operations are capable of when it launched Bank Heist, an island/mode built in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) for Fortnite, in July. It has also ramped up its drink brand Juvee in recent months with new flavors and expanded distribution in the U.S. and abroad.
Editor’s note: This story was updated with a more accurate title and additional context to clarify that the company is spinning off its non-esports operations into their own separate entities. We apologize for the confusion the original story might have caused.
