The STJV relays this message from ex-Starbreeze Paris employees, and is in full support of their demands.
On January 10th 2025, Starbreeze Management announced to all 23 employees of its french subsidiary Starbreeze Paris the start of a procedure aiming at closing this entity and laying off all of its staff. All of these workers were assigned to the studio’s games projects such as Payday2, Payday3, and the more recent project Baxter, just like Starbreeze employees in Stockholm.
This cessation of activity only exists in theory, as the swedish parent company is recreating similar positions in Stockholm. Starbreeze is comfortable with this strategy, and even proudly claimed in its Q4 2024 shareholders-aimed report that closing foreign subsidiaries will optimize the group’s market value. This decision was unilateral, discussions with Starbreeze Paris staff representatives were strictly limited to presenting a plan that was not up for discussion.
This decision is a dubious strategic move, losing the most technically competent personnel with years of expertise and accumulated company knowledge is hardly viable.
This decision shows total disrespect towards the affected employees that see their career come to a brutal halt : absolutely no compensation other than the bare legal minimum was offered, and management even refused to pay for arrears of employee expenses linked to the use of their personal space in an all-remote company.
This decision is illegal : the parent company Starbreeze AB, being the real employer of all 23 dismissed workers, did not stop any activity and shows culpable carelessness as it cannot justify the layoffs by anything else than aiming at lowering personnel cost to increase its profitability.
This kind of action has sadly become more frequent within the big companies of the video game industry, forgoing all respect towards those who create and build the games.
Ex-employees of Starbreeze Paris do not accept this state of affairs and in consequence have united and filed 17 complaints with the competent court in order to overturn these abusive layoffs.
With this example, we want to establish that the video game industry does not exist above the law. We strongly encourage other workers in the field to organize and fight for their rights in order to end this kind of practice.