Facebook game Ghost Recon: Commander gets cancelled, developers laid off

Ubisoft has canned its Facebook strategy game Ghost Recon: Commander, leading to major layoffs at developer Loot Drop.

Loot Drop co-founder Brenda Romero wrote on Twitter, "Sad news. Today, Ghost Recon: Commander was cancelled. As a result, we laid off a team of kick-ass developers. If you have openings, ping me."

We confirmed the news with Ubisoft. A spokesperson for Ubi told Pocket Gamer, "Ghost Recon: Commander will unfortunately be discontinued because the gameplay mechanics did not resonate with the core gamer audience."

Ubisoft had previously pegged this turn-based tactical shooter as a "gamer's game on Facebook". According to App Data, the game received about 20,000 daily active users. A game like FarmVille or Draw Something receives millions.

The French publisher told us that "this decision does not reflect a change of strategy for any of Ubisoft's other social games currently in development or operation." Ubisoft's most popular Facebook games include The Smurfs & Co, CSI: Crime City, and House M.D. - Critical Cases.

Ubisoft also told us that "we will continue to operate Ghost Recon: Commander from now until the end of the calendar year with monetization removed." You can play it here.

Ghost Recon: Commander is not the only Facebook game to get the chop, incidentally. Following a round of staff layoffs at Zynga, the social gaming giant's CEO, Mark Pincus, said his company would be "sunsetting 13 older games" and "significantly reducing our investment in The Ville".