Disney Interactive To Lay Off Several Hundred Employees

Even though the success of  “Disney Infinity” helped take Disney Interactive from the red to the black last year, it doesn’t appear to be enough to save the jobs of everyone who works for the division.

Reports came out yesterday that Disney Interactive is expected to lay off “several hundred” people after Disney releases its quarterly earnings on Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal pointed to Playdom, the social game developer that Disney Interactive gobbled up in 2010, as one subsidiary that might bear the brunt of the cuts.

As was the case with several successful social gaming studios at the beginning of the decade, Disney bought high on Playdom, acquiring it at what was arguably the height of its powers. The company enjoyed a great deal of success with games like “Social City,” “Sorority Life” and the “Mobsters” titles when Facebook was the epicenter of casual gaming, but with the exception of “Marvel: Avengers Alliance” (which started out on Facebook itself), it hasn’t been able to produce hits at the same rate for mobile devices.

Playdom would hardly be the only studio to fail to make the transition to mobile gracefully—one needs only to glance in Zynga’s direction for proof—but with Disney Interactive as a whole floundering for years, it was likely a drag on the division that proved unsustainable. We’ll know by the end of the week, but now people are apparently going to pay with their jobs, and that always stinks.

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