Drop, vendor of Lord of the Rings-themed keyboards and extra, will likely be shutting down in March

The Drop retailer, purveyor of fairly priced {hardware} collaborations and funky keycaps, will likely be closing down on the finish of March. You will nonetheless be capable to overview your order historical past through the Drop web site after the tip of March, however will probably be father or mother firm Corsair taking over the retail reins.

Based on a current weblog submit, “Drop will not function as a standalone ecommerce retailer as of March thirty first.” Current preorders and warranties will nonetheless be honored by Corsair, although “Drop Rewards remaining after [March 25] will not be redeemable.”

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Equally, collaborations involving different {hardware} corporations—resembling Drop’s Sennheiser and Koss headphone collaborations—additionally in all probability will not resurface (it is smart that Corsair would not need to compete with its personal gaming headset choices). Although no particular merchandise have been confirmed both approach, Williams did supply, “The primary ones which can be promoting properly and do properly, we’re going to proceed on Corsair.”

(Picture credit score: Drop)

Corsair bought Drop again in 2023, and seems to be shutting down the mechanical keyboard centered outfit not even three years later. Drop’s workers have been built-in into Corsair again then and, on the very least, Williams claims that no lay-offs have resulted from the store’s shuttering.

That nobody has misplaced their jobs is an uncommon silver lining that I’ll fortunately take. That is particularly as a result of final yr we noticed Microsoft lay off 9,000 workers, and Intel let go of 4,000 individuals. It is simply a number of the newest developments in a multi-year development that sees huge tech hacking away at jobs to the tune of 1000’s; as an illustration, again in 2023, Google lower an eye-watering 12,000 jobs and the business hasn’t absolutely slowed down since.

Final yr was clearly dangerous, however 2026 has by no means let up on the video games facet of issues. Moreover Ubisoft’s announcement of a return-to-office order and the reassurance final month that studio closures are coming, we have extra just lately seen the shock shuttering of XCOM designer Jake Solomon’s Midsummer studio.

Moreover this month, Highguard developer Wildlight Leisure has apparently laid off a lot of its workers, and most just lately, Skate studio Full Circle has additionally let go of workers. A GDC survey discovered that one third of US video games business staff have been laid off within the final two years, so this is maybe naively hoping for a bit of business stability sooner relatively than later.