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No no, Kotaku.
6 people. 6 people were laid off, and the game's real director, who is Chinese and is in the update videos, is still working on the game. Thaddeus Sasser, who is the director that was let go from the Seattle office, said that the Chinese director was in charge of everything relating to the game itself, and that Thaddeus was basically only in charge of budget and hiring.
My understanding was that this little 6 man team did work on the game in an r&d role, testing stuff for levels, characters etc. So they weren't a useless team, but I doubt they were as big a deal as the media is making out.
Most jobs provide some value, but I guarantee you the Chinese team already had double the amount of Chinese workers doing everything these 6 people did already. NetEase operates that way, its not unusual for them to have Chinese employees doing the same job as any of their small foreign offices, as it is cheaper for them to do so when they inevitably cut the more expensive, probably less productive team (be that due to language barriers or timezone differences, whatever the reason).
We've officially gotten to the point where videogame layoff news has become so oversaturated that incredibly simple firings are reported with outrage.