Angry Birds developer Rovio says that it will have to cut 16 percent of its workforce. The company announced plans this week to downsize its staff by cutting around 130 jobs from its workforce in Finland. The cuts are apparently due to a lack of growth in recent months.

In the wake of the Yogscast-backed and Kickstarter-funded game Yogventures giving up the ghost and being canceled by developer Winterkewl Games, another Yogscast -backed developer was put forward to provide gamers who backed that other project some recompense. While the company still plans to do that, it looks like it is going through some short-term problems with funding that will in turn force it to lay off half of its staff.

In July of this year Microsoft announced that it would cut approximately 18,000 jobs from its global workforce by July 2015. At the time it made the announcement, it also laid off around 13,000 employees worldwide.

This week Microsoft cut an additional 2,100 from its global workforce, making the total number of cuts made this year reach 15,100. Between now and July of next year Microsoft will have to cut an additional 2,900 jobs. In July, prior to the layoffs, Microsoft had a global workforce of around 125,000 employees.

ZeniMax Online has laid off an undisclosed number of employees who were working on The Elder Scrolls Online, the company's MMO based loosely on the popular role-playing game series that includes such games as Oblivion and Skyrim.

While the layoffs were confirmed by Peter Hines, vice president of PR and marketing at Bethesda Softworks, the company did not disclose how many employees were let go, and whether those employees were full-time, part-time, or contractors.

Sources speaking to GamesIndustry International are telling the publication that Malta-based development studio TRC Family Media is in serious financial trouble. According to multiple sources inside the company, TRC's financial situation is so dire that it has told employees that 90 percent of the company's work force may be laid off.

Nintendo of Europe has confirmed with Kotaku that around 320 of its employees will be laid off this week. That number includes around 130 full-time Nintendo of Europe employees, along with 190 temporary workers at Nintendo of Europe's Germany-based localization department. All 320 people will be unemployed by August 31, according to Kotaku.

Update: A rep. for CCP Games informed us that CCP Games CFO Joe Gallo and CMO David Reid left the company voluntarily, and were not fired, as was previously reported.

Original Story: EVE Online maker CCP Games announced during its latest financial report that it is shutting down its San Francisco-based game development studio and letting two executives go. The news comes on the heels of the company reporting a downturn in year-over-year profits.

InFamous developer Sucker Punch has laid off an undetermined number of employees, according to what Sony Computer Entertainment America (the parent company of the studio), has told IGN UK.

SCEA would not give an exact number, but did confirm that there has been a "reduction in workforce." The company also did not disclose the reasoning behind the layoffs.

GII reports that UK games publisher Mastertronic announced that it is being "forced" to apply for a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) to avoid catastrophe over outstanding loans. In addition, the company announced that it will be closing its Cambridge, England headquarters, exiting the physical retail business it has been involved in for decades, and laying off 40 percent of its workforce.

Update: A CBS Interactive representative tells us that more than two people remain on GameSpot's U.S. editorial team, and that Eddie Makuch, a member of GameSpot's news team, is still with the company - he works out of the company's East Coast office. Crave Online reports that Jess McDonell, Danny O’Dwyer, Justin Haywald, Chris Watters, and Kevin VanOrd still work for GameSpot as of this writing.

This afternoon Crytek USA announced that it had closed its Texas-based development studio and moved the development of the free-to-play co-op shooter the studio was working on - Hunt: Horrors of the Guilded Age - to its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. Earlier in the day it was revealed that the company sold the Homefront franchise to Koch Media and had shut down its UK studio.

According to Gamasutra's Game Developer Salary Survey 2014 (PDF), layoffs were on the rise in 2013. This is in contrast to prior years where the number remained slightly down or close to flat. Around 14 percent of developers surveyed said they were laid off in 2013. That's up slightly by two percent from 2012.

Update: Microsoft has confirmed that - as part of a major staff reduction - it will shut down Xbox Entertainment Studios. Xbox boss Phil Spencer confirmed the news to Xbox Entertainment Studios staff on Thursday in an email:

According to this Bloomberg report, Microsoft is planning to cut a number of jobs in its Xbox division as part of an overall restructuring plan. Two anonymous sources familiar with the situation have told Bloomberg that overall cuts could end up being the biggest number of layoffs since 2009 when the company laid off 5,800 employees.

Independent game development studio Airtight Games has confirmed via Twitter that it has officially gone out of business, but it did not provide any particular details on why the Redmond, Washington-based studio closed. Yesterday reports surfaced that the studios office were locked and a sign on the door indicated that the equipment inside the building was for sale.

A recent visit to the Redmond, Washington offices of Airtight Games by GeekWire revealed a startling find: the company seems to have gone out of business. According to the GeekWire report, the publication visited the offices yesterday to find it closed and a sign on the door advertising a "blow out sale" on the equipment inside.

Subsequent attempts to reach the studio have gone unanswered. In April the studio laid off 14 employees as part of what it called "necessary restructuring."

Computer & Video Games will not be shut down by Future Publishing, but will suffer a round of layoffs, according to this MCV report. Earlier this year Future had revealed plans to shut down the publication and focus on GamesRadar. Instead, the company will cut two of the five full time staff members working for CVG, with a review of the site occurring again in December of this year.

Nintendo announced today that it will consolidate its European operations and lay off 130 employees. The company said in a press release today that it will be closing its headquarters building and a warehouse in Großostheim, Germany and moving its European operations to Frankfurt. These changes mean that an estimated "130 permanent employees" will be laid off.

EVE Online maker CCP Games has laid off 49 employees from its Icelandic headquarters. The latest round of layoffs follow 56 employees being let go from its Atlanta, Georgia offices a few months ago. CCP confirmed the layoffs in a statement to Polygon, saying that those who were affected this time around were from the company's "publishing organization."

Last week Harmonix raised $844,127 on Kickstarter to create a successor to its popular 2002 PS2 music rhythm game, Amplitude. There was much celebration and appreciation from the company. But hot on the heels of that positive news, Harmonix has laid off 37 of its staff and shuffled several executives into new positions.

Last month Dungeon Defenders developer Trendy Entertainment hired former LucasArts president Darrell Rodriguez as its CEO. This month the Florida-based developer has made some serious changes - a reduction of around 20 percent of its workforce, according to GamesIndustry International. The 20 percent reduction in staff hit both the development and marketing departments within the company, though Trendy declined to say exactly how many employees had been let go.

Rare has suffered a number of high profile layoffs, which Microsoft is describing as part of a decision to change the "development process" at the UK studio. A little under 20 employees have been given pink slips, including veteran programmer Chris Sutherland and designer Gavin Price.

Sutherland, a twenty year veteran at Rare, has worked on such games as Battletoads, three Donkey Kong Country games, and the Banjo-Kazooie series. He also is the voice of Banjo-Kazooie.

Video games retailer GameStop will close between 120 to 130 of its 6,457 retail locations worldwide, the company announced. The move is part of a plan to focus more on mobile called "GameStop 3.0," according to what CEO Paul Raines said at GameStop's 2014 Investor Day yesterday. As part of that initiative GameStop will focus on Mobile and Apple-based devices by launching stand-alone chains like the AT&T-branded chain "Spring Mobile" and the Apple retailer "Simply Mac."

EVE Online maker CCP Games announced this morning that it has canceled its long in development MMO World of Darkness. In addition to canning the game, the company has laid off dozens of staff. The game has been in development since 2006, with CCP’s Atlanta, GA studio handling the lion's share of development. CCP Games confirmed that it had laid off 56 employees in Atlanta, but some of those employees were offered other roles within CCP, which has other offices in North America, the UK, China and Iceland.

Sega announced today that it has cut a small number of jobs from its European office in London as part of a larger consolidation plan for the company's Sonic and mobile divisions.

The U.S. arm of magazine publisher Future has laid off a third of its employees, according to this GII report. The UK-based publisher will not shut down any of its U.S. brands but key responsibilities will now be carried out by UK teams, including "editorial leadership and all print support duties."

Yesterday, Mark Wood announced he would step down as Future's CEO on April 1, with current CFO Zillah Byng-Maddick lined up as his replacement.

Sony has confirmed that several studios in its UK studio system have been affected by a round of layoffs. The studios affected by layoffs include its London Studio, Guerrilla Cambridge Studio, and Evolution Studio. While the company confirmed the layoffs it would not say just how many employees were let go in this latest round of layoffs that are part of a restructuring plan.

God of War III creative director Stig Asmussen has resigned from Sony Santa Monica, following recent layoffs at the studio. While Sony Computer Entertainment confirmed with IGN that the sudden departure was real, the company did not give a specific reason for Asmussen's resignation. Asmussen was supposedly working on a new project unrelated to the God of War series for which Sony's Santa Monica studio was responsible for over the years.

Disney has confirmed that it is cutting 700 jobs, or 26 percent of its worldwide workforce according to reports in Variety and the New York Times. A good number of the cuts will hit Disney’s Playdom social games group.

Eidos Montreal has laid off 27 employees, the company confirmed in a statement to Kotaku last night. The company did not say how many of these employees were full time or if some of them were temporary employees brought in to work on its most recently released title, Thief. Thief was released last week and has received a mixed reception from both gamers and critics.