This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Disney Interactive's Salt Lake City-based video game studio, Avalanche Software, laid off 15 of its workers last week, the third such wave of layoffs this year for Disney's worldwide video game division.
The studio's co-founder, John Blackburn, could only confirm the layoffs and said it involved employees from across all the studio's disciplines. He said the layoffs occurred Sept. 1.
A spokeswoman with Disney Interactive's main office in Los Angeles issued a statement that only said the company "completed a restructuring that resulted in the reduction of a small number of positions."
Avalanche, which was founded in 1995 and then bought by Disney in 2005, has been creating video game tie-ins for such movie and TV properties as "Toy Story 3," "Hannah Montana, "Bolt" and "Meet the Robinsons." The studio's latest release was a game based on the Pixar film "Cars 2," which was released this summer. At its peak, Avalanche employed about 170 programmers and artists to work on the game.
In all, Disney Interactive owns six gaming studios in California, Utah, Texas, Illinois and China.
In January, the division reportedly laid off a significant number of employees — perhaps as many as 200 — from both its Los Angeles headquarters and its Austin-based Junction Point Studios, makers of the Wii game "Epic Mickey."
Two months later, the company reportedly let go another 80 employees as part of a restructuring plan.
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