Gameplay axes jobs in cut-backs

Gameplay is to axe up to 20 people in its marketing department when it closes its Colchester and Wimbledon offices in March next year.

The online entertainment company, which last month opened eight high street stores, is consolidating its UK activities into its London and Leeds offices in order to achieve a “more focused, cost-effective operation”.

The job cuts will be made at all levels of the 50-strong London-based marketing department.

The 20 job losses will also hit the Colchester office, which houses the games development team for Wireplay, the company’s online gaming service where users compete over the Net.

“We are now in our second year and certain things that we did in our first year, such as branding activity, are no longer so relevant,” says Tim Cole, UK managing director.

“We are working very hard to find suitable roles for as many people as we can. At the moment I cannot quantify the number of redundancies, but it could be 20.” Gameplay dropped the “.com” suffix from the company name earlier this year and has invested £5m in rebranding the seven “@Jakarta” high street stores it acquired from Dixons.

Customers are able to play Wireplay games in the stores with each store establishing its own online team. There will also be local competitions and a noticeboard to establish a physical community.