Marvel Contest of Champions studio Kabam lays off unknown number of staff in LA office consolidation

Kabam has laid off an unknown number of employees in Los Angeles as part of an office consolidation and broader streamlining effort. The company’s LA footprint has been built through a series of acquisitions and mergers over the years, so this likely means another reshaping of a studio structure that has already changed several times.

For developers, the immediate takeaway is that even long-running live-service businesses with major revenue can still face headcount reductions when leadership revisits operating costs and strategic priorities. Kabam’s best-known title, Marvel Contest of Champions, has been a major commercial success, but that hasn’t insulated the company from restructuring.

The LA operation traces back to Kabam’s 2015 acquisitions of Tapzen and Magic Pixel Games, which were later folded into a Culver City outfit led by Mike Verdu. After Kabam was acquired by Netmarble in 2017, the company was merged into Netmarble’s US arm in 2022, creating another LA office under the Kabam name. One Kabam LA employee has already said publicly that they were laid off and are looking for work.

This is also part of a wider pattern: Kabam carried out layoffs in 2022 and 2023, and its Disney Mirrorverse partnership ended with the game’s shutdown in December 2024. For teams watching the live-ops space, it’s another reminder that portfolio strength doesn’t always translate into staffing stability.