UPDATE: Lightbox President Dylan Jobe spoke to Joystiq confirming that there would be a total of 24 lay-offs but the studio is not closing. “Lay-offs always suck but they are an unfortunate reality of business sometimes.” said Jobe. “The best we can do is try and treat our people with respect during the shocking transition of a lay-off.”

After these lay-offs, Jobe stated that Lightbox will become a “much smaller studio” and is shifting focus onto the development of its first game for iOS. The future of the Starhawk series is currently unknown.

ORIGINAL STORY: Another developer may be fully closed by the end of the week. LightBox Interactive, developers of Starhawk, is reportedly suffering from layoffs supposedly from the lack of sales for Starhawk and could be closed by Friday. This information comes from Duke Nukem Forever designer, George Broussard, via his Twitter account.

It’s unknown under what circumstances the closure is happening, as the studio had a multi-game deal with Sony, though it’s thought that a clause would’ve allowed for Sony to back out if sales of Starhawk didn’t reach certain limits.

Sony has recently been on a trend of letting second party companies go, such as Zipper and Studio Liverpool, which further adds believability to the rumours.

More on the story as it develops.