Acti confirms 88 job losses, closure of Budcat, as Lucasarts confirms cuts

Activision has confirmed that 88 staff have been dropped from company QA in California, and that Budcat has been completely closed.

"We continue to streamline our music development resources to ensure that they are aligned against our slate and strategic goals," said the firm in a statement.

"As a result, we are implementing a targeted reduction in jobs in our Quality Assurance team in California and closing our Budcat studio in Iowa. Budcat has been a great partner to Activision and has created a lasting impact on the Guitar Hero franchise.

"Approximately 88 positions, or approximately 1 percent of our global workforce, will be impacted by these reductions. We are working to redirect those employees that are impacted to other parts of the company where possible, as well as offering them outplacement counseling services."

In addition, earlier, sources were  claiming Lucasarts was laying folks off: Twitter was all abuzz with chat supporting the rumor, which has now been confirmed by Lucasarts as "minor".

"LucasArts recently made a minor adjustment in staffing to help us better address the needs of the business," said a studio spokesperson in a statement. "We remain committed to our internal studio - and to fostering relationships with trusted external partners - in order to deliver quality games that amaze and inspire fans."

It's being rumored the number of those affected hits around the 50 mark.

The news broke earlier today thanks to a tweet from the Radar Group's Will Kerslake, he received the news via Facebook from "a friend that works there" who "posted he was cut today," but Kerslake had "no idea the scale" of the lay-offs just yet.

Then there was one from 3D Realms' George Broussard just a short while later, whose lay-off tweets have been correct in the past, that redundancies were happening "as we speak".

Earlier this year, Lucasarts reorganized its studios, but declined to specify how many employees were being made redundant. It was rumored to be around the 30-80 mark.

The news comes just hours after Activision revealed it's to "explore" its options regarding the "future" of Bizarre Creations.