Razer Layoffs Cast Doubt on a Third Gaming Phone

This weekend, Razer announced that it would be closing its game store as part of the company’s realignment plans. Rumors also say that Razer may be cancelling the Razer 3 smartphone along with the shuttering of the game store.

Razer Employees Reassigned

Razer’s official announcement may have focused on the shuttering of the game store, but the company has reportedly laid off 30 employees (2 percent of its workforce) and reassigned other employees to other roles, too. The number of layoffs and reassigned employees seems to be larger than what would be required to run a game store that merely resold Steam and Uplay game keys to its customers.

This incongruence points to layoffs affecting other Razer divisions, including the mobile division. Razer more or less confirmed the rumor of the mobile division being shut down or significantly reduced by stating that people working in the mobile division have either been let go or were moved to other projects:

“In our mobile division, there were some staff members who were let go, and others who were reassigned to other new projects. We see great opportunities in the mobile gaming space that we created with the Razer Phone and will continue to invest in this category through a combination of hardware and software initiatives. We are working on new exciting mobile projects and will share the news when we are ready. The Razer Phone 2 will continue to be on sale and we are committed to supporting it with the latest updates and features.”

The Razer smartphones are gaming-centric devices with 120Hz displays and 8GB of RAM. The 120Hz display was interesting, but its benefits for most Android games were questionable. It's unclear if Razer has plans to move on to a third Razer phone.