Spin Master lays off devs after launching Paw Patrol: The Game

On July 6, Originator Inc. celebrated the release of Paw Patrol: The Game, a free-to-play mobile game based on the popular children’s animated show. Two days later, its parent company Spin Master—which produces the show—laid off the entire studio.

Game Developer first became aware of this development following posts from employees on LinkedIn. A representative for Spin Master confirmed the layoffs in a statement to Game Developer. “We made the decision to transition Originator’s products and operations to the Sago Mini Team in Toronto,” they stated.

These layoffs come five years after Spin Master acquired Originator Inc. for $29 million in 2021—an acquisition that included control of the Endless educational game series, a collection of children’s educational apps that began with Endless Alphabet, released on January 18, 2013. Over the years, Originator would release other games in the series like Endless Reader, Endless Learning Academy, Endless Numbers, and other games under the brand name. Spin Master transferred development of Endless Learning Academy to Sago Mini Team in 2025.

Originator Inc has flown somewhat under the radar since its founding in 2013, but it and the Endless educational games have an unexpected point of origin: Callaway Arts & Entertainment, the publishing company founded by photographer Nicholas Callaway that once published celebrated children’s books and high-profile coffee table tomes like Madonna’s Sex, The Beatles: Get Back (a reproduction of photos from Peter Jackson’s film of the same name), and Bob Dylan: Mixing Up The Medicine.

How does an educational children’s series from a New York publisher wind up at the Canadian animation company behind Paw Patrol? The story begins with Callaway himself, who in 2011 interview with Reuters, declared he was “betting the farm” on educational mobile apps.

Originator Inc. began life at Callaway Digital Arts

Callaway’s educational app endeavors began in 2010 with the founding of Callaway Digital Arts. Its parent company had previously published a digital version of the children’s book Miss Spider’s Tea Party, which apparently attracted the interest of none other than Apple co-founder Steve Jobs (at least according to a now-archived article from Publisher’s Marketplace, per CBS). Callaway Digital Arts landed the rights to make an iOS version of the Sesame Street book The Monster at the End of This Book and games based off the Thomas and Friends series (Sesame Street’s The Monster at the End of This Book apparently faced a buggy launch).

The company hired former EA Japan exec Rex Ishibashi as CEO in 2011. It seemed to be bolstering its video games bona fides with the hiring of veteran game producer and fellow EA alumni Caryl Shaw in 2012. But somewhere between then and 2013, Callaway Digital Arts would vanish, and Originator Inc. would take its place. There doesn’t seem to be any public documentation of the link between the two companies. An undated App Store profile of Originator describes the company as being founded by “five dads” in 2013, with no mention of Callaway.

But there are implicit connections. Callaway Arts & Entertainment still lists Endless Alphabet as one of its signature “award-winning apps.” The game’s App Store page says it was made by “the creators of Sesame Street’s Monster at the End of This Book.” And of course there’s the presence of Ishibashi, who was CEO of both companies.

Unfortunately, both companies also face shared economic misfortune in the tough conditions impacting all media in 2026. Callaway Arts & Entertainment filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in March 2026, just three months before Spin Master laid off the Originator team.

Update 7/14: A Spin Master representative confirmed to Game Developer that Originator Inc will continue to exist as a studio, but operations will continue with the aforementioned Toronto team. They also confirmed that Originator Inc. purchased Endless Alphabet from Callaway Digital Arts after the company was shut down (apparently with little fanfare) before Originator released the game in 2013.