Sony Computer Entertainment has confirmed to Game Informer that it has closed SOCOM, Unit 13, and MAG makers Zipper Interactive. The studio was launched in Seattle, Washington in 1995 and at the time of its closure it employed around 80 people. The fate of those people still remains unknown as of this writing, but we assume Sony did not let everyone go considering the importance of the SOCOM series.

"The closure is a result of a normal cycle of resource re-alignment within Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios," the statement reads.

THQ is shifting its game Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium from an MMO to a single-player game with multiplayer components. The company said in a press release issued today that the shift will result in hundreds of layoffs across multiple studios.

A group of former Irish GAME employees have been staging on-site protests at a number of now shuttered stores in Ireland and have released a statement explaining why they are so upset with the video games retailer that recently went into administration. The protests are a direct response to GAME and administrator PriceWaterhouseCoopers refusing to pay fired employees for the remainder of their contract, holiday pay owed and other compensation owed.

The group says that it will continue their protests until PwC amends its decision. The full statement can be found below:

Troubled UK video game retailer GAME has officially entered into administration, with PricewaterHouseCooopers named as its administrator. According to a GamesIndustry International report, the company has taken both game.co.uk and gamestation.co.uk down, and has begun closing stores in the UK.

According to a GameIndustry International report and this NeoGaf thread, a handful of IGN and 1UP employees have been laid off today. IGN's Jack DeVries and 1UP employees Matt Leone, Thierry Nguyen, and Ryan Winterhalter have been let go.

"As of today, I no longer work for 1UP. Not sure what's next yet. Contact me and offer me glorious things!" tweeted Matt Leone.

Obsidian Entertainment's Chris Avellone revealed yesterday on Twitter that his company didn't get paid bonuses for Fallout: New Vegas because the game was one point shy of the required Metacritic score of 85. Apparently its publishing contract with Bethesda had a clause in it that said they would get a bonus for hitting a Metacritic score of 85, but because the game came in at 84 they didn't receive any extra money.

Joystiq is reporting that Obsidian Entertainment has laid off a number of employees this week, though the exact number of affected employees was not clear as of this writing. The news comes from Obsidian's official forums and an unnamed tipster who sent them the following information:

RuneScape developer Jagex has frozen development on its space MMO Stellar Dawn and eliminated 12 positions as part of a reorganization effort. The company said that it halted development of the game to put the focus on its flagship MMO RuneScape and the upcoming Transformers Universe MMO that it has been developing.

According to Eurogamer, Hydrophobia developer Dark Energy Digital will enter into administration. Citing an anonymous source - a former employee who claims to represent 18 other employees - Eurogamer reports that the company is in bad shape and a majority of the staff has not been paid in nearly three months. Dark Energy Digital, run by husband and wife Pete and Deborah Jones, released Hydrophobia on Xbox Live. The game was heavily panned.

After an internal review, Activision has decided to eliminate 600 jobs across Blizzard's global workforce, according to GameIndustry.biz. Approximately 90 percent of these job cuts are unrelated to internal development, and the World of Warcraft development team will not be affected.

According to a GameIndustry.biz report, Syndicate developer Starbreeze Studios has eliminated 25 jobs. While our first guess would be that these jobs were temporary or work-for-hire jobs that were to be eliminated when the company finished developing the tactical action game sequel for Electronic Arts anyway, comments from Starbreeze's Mikael Nermark to GameIndustry.biz don't make a distinction:

Brazilian social games company Vostu has laid off an unspecified number of employees this week. The South American social game maker had an estimated 600 employees in December - before the layoffs. Vostu claims that these layoffs have more to do with consolidation of development teams, and not the settlement of a lawsuit with social game maker Zynga.

It looks like the Australian game development community has been hit again by another round of layoffs - this time at a Sega studio. According to GameIndustry.biz, 37 employees have been laid off at Sega Studios Australia in Brisbane. The studios' most recent work was London 2012: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games. Prior to that the studio went under the name The Creative Assembly Australia and worked on Rome: Total War, Medieval II: Total War and Stormrise.

Electronic Arts has confirmed that it has laid off a number of its staff at EA Canada. The company would not disclose just how many employees were affected by the layoffs. The cuts are part of a restructuring plan at the Vancouver office and its studio in nearby Burnaby. That studio is responsible for the development of such titles as Need For Speed: The Run and FIFA 12.

IGDA Mobile SIG Chair Kevin Dent predicted that THQ would lay off around 170 employees yesterday. It turns out that he was under reporting the carnage at the company. Today it was revealed that THQ plans to let a total of 240 employees go in the next few months. The majority of the staff cuts will be made by the end of the financial year on March 31, 2012, with the rest happening by October.

More than 170 employees have been cut from various THQ studios, including high profile game industry veteran Mark DeLoura (who served as vice president of technology at the company), according to Kevin Dent, chair of the IGDA Mobile SIG. Dent, who is also the CEO of Tiswaz Entertainment and an advisory board member at PlayHaven, said earlier this month that THQ had canceled its entire 2012 line-up. The company vehemently denied that rumor. Yesterday it was revealed that NASDAQ had threatened THQ with being delisted from the U.S.

At the same time Future was laying off employees at multiple publications within its ecosystem, IGN was telling long-time video game site VooDoo Extreme that they could no longer afford to pay them to update the site. They asked them to stay on as volunteers, according to one staffer.

Here's what "Jube" over at VooDoo Extreme said about the situation in a post called "Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes - The State Of Our Voodoo Extremities" :

Yesterday was a bad day for anyone that worked at Future US Publishing. The company laid off 19 employees as part of a restructuring plan from various divisions including Games Radar, Mac|Life, MaxPC, and Future Studios. The company will continue to publish Nintendo Power, PlayStation: The Official Magazine, OXM, and @Gamer.

Bethesda confirmed that Rage developer id Software has suffered an unspecified number of layoffs today.  That’s always a bummer and hopefully those affected are able to find gainful employment soon.

As far as we’re aware, this is the first major layoff id Software has seen.

According to a Computer & Video Games report, Nottingham, England-based studio Monumental Games went into administration (bankruptcy) last week and has eliminated all 25 of its full-time employees. 

The once promising in-game advertising agency IGA Worldwide continues to struggle, and has laid off nearly a third of its employees, according to a VentureBeat report.

Last week THQ confirmed that it had lowered its third-quarter projections, mostly based on poor sales of the HD versions of its uDraw tablet for Xbox 360 and PS3. On Friday the company delivered some retribution to 30 of its employees who worked on that project in some way. The company laid off 30 employees from its Play THQ development team, including unit leader Martin Good. That team worked out of THQ’s Agoura Hills, California offices.

Update: 1c Ukraine’s Sergey Galenkin confirms that GSC Game World has officially closed - as reported by Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

"GSC is closed, a fact confirmed by all. The team is almost completely dissolved, the state has only a few people," wrote Galenkin on his blog. 

Warner Bros. has confirmed that a number of jobs from its studios in the Seattle, Washington area have been eliminated. The confirmation comes after 3D Realms boss George Broussard tweeted about it earlier, saying that around 60 employees had been let go from the studio.

On Friday it was revealed that LEGO Universe, the LEGO block-themed massively multiplayer online building game, would be closing in January. Today we learn that 115 employees will lose their job in the aftermath of the game's shutdown.

California-based social game developer RockYou will lay off 100 employees. Around 40 employees will be going with Playdemic, the firm RockYou acquired in January of this year. The company will sell the studio back to its founders. Around 56 employees will be downsized from RockYou’s Redwood City headquarters, leaving around 90 employees at the company. The cuts and staff moves equate to a 50 percent overall reduction of staff.

German online browser and MMO game company Gameforge plans to let 100 of its 450 employees go.

"Through a more efficient organizational structure, we can optimize our use of resources and great potential for further growth increase," said Gameforge CEO and founder Alexander Roesner in a statement. "This will strengthen our long term position in the dynamic market for online games."

Ontario-based, Silicon Knights has laid off 45 employees, leaving around 40 employees left at the studio, according to multiple published reports. Earlier reports had the number a bit higher. The company is best known for developing such titles as Blood Omen, Too Human and Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, and is one of Ontario’s oldest development studios. The layoffs are apparently related to the completion of a project for Activision Blizzard.

CCP CEO Hilmar Petursson said in a recent Gamasutra interview that it was his responsibility to prevent layoffs at the Eve Online studio - a task he obviously failed at this week when the company announced that it would cut 20 percent of its employees.

"This is a major thing, and it’s something which it is my responsibility to avoid," said Petursson in an interview with Gamasutra.

Another day, another story about game developer layoffs in Australia. This time it's at the 2K Marin studio in New South Wales. According to a Kotaku report, citing asource who wished to remain anonymous, 15 employees have been laid off from the studio formerly known as 2K Canberra. 2K Marin co-developed BioShock 2, and is reportedly involved in developing a new X-Com project.