Just as we are approaching the busiest season for the gaming industry, several indie developers are closing down, and triple A publishers and developers are laying off some of their work force in a bid to cut costs. Throughout this year we have seen a lot of these cases, and after last week's Day 1 lay offs, this week we saw the closure of the developers behind the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise, GSC Game World. Unfortunately with the high rate of gaming piracy, the heavy competition, and the huge pressure from publishers, this company had to close down and lay off all of their team members. The Ukrainian developer was mid way through completing the follow up to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which was to be launched early next year, but it seems like they have hit problems ever since starting the project. But the industry isn't being hard on just the small developers, as THQ also have reportedly laid off at least 30 employees from their play THQ team, after their title uDraw failed miserably in the market. It's a harsh reality to face for all these individuals, especially during this season, but as time goes by the industry seems to be taking harder hits, and the first people to go are the underdogs and the small divisions within large companies.