London - Sweden-based video game developer Avalanche Studios has laid off 77 employees in the wake of losing two publisher deals, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Founded in 2003, the developer of titles including "Just Cause" and the Avalanche Engine employed 160 staff before the layoffs.

"We have lost two publisher deals this year -- those deals were worth around $34 million," Avalanche CEO Christofer Sundberg told GamesIndustry.biz.

"We lost the first deal in February but we could survive that one because we had a shortage of staff in other projects and we decided to put together a team to work on a original IP that we had in development. But the team that were working on a project that was terminated last week -- there were about 67 people on that team."

The company said it is continuing to work on "Just Cause 2" for Eidos and "The Hunter" for Emote Games.

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http://www.avalanchestudios.se