Tag Archives: layoffs

Troubled Canadian developer Silicon Knights is said to have been hit by “massive layoffs”.

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As part of a “strategic realignment”, THQ has announced it will close two entire studios and let go one further dev team, as well as closing down the MX vs. ATV franchise.

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The creators of the Zoo Tycoon franchise have announced today that they’ve been hit with layoffs, and inside sources claim the layoffs are even worse.
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Disney Interactive is reported to have cut a further 80 jobs as part of its ongoing restructure.

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Ubisoft confirmed last night that 38 staff have been made redundant from Tom Clancy studio Red Storm Entertainment, as part of an effort to “focus on its core expertise” of “developing innovative multiplayer experiences.”

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God of War: Chains of Olympus developer Ready at Dawn has confirmed it’s had to lay-off some of staff.

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Looks like more than just Neversoft and Radical felt the sting of layoffs following a meeting with Activision yesterday.

According to reports, Luxoflux and Underground Development, the studio responsible for Guitar Hero: Van Halen and BMX XXX, were both closed completely.

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Square Enix has lowered its first-half profit forecast by 65 percent to ¥2.6 billion ($28.4 million) following a round of layoffs.

Blaming numerous “special factors” for the revision, the current exchange rate and premium severance packages for staff that were laid off were also to blame.

Net income for its financial year ending March 31, 2010 was lowered 33 percent, from ¥15 billion to ¥10 billion with most severance packages being absorbed during the first half.

Things are expected to look more positive once Final Fantasy XIII is released in Japan on December 17.

Via GI.biz.

Ex-id/Ion Storm man John Romero’s latest project, a development studio called Slipgate Ironworks, has seen a bit of restructuring recently. First, the bad news: layoffs. And lots of them.

According to a few former Slipgate employees who spoke with Kotaku, some 50 staff members have received pink slips over the past week.

The not-so-bad news, though? The show’s not over. Slipgate owner Gazillion confirmed that Romero and co.’s MMO is still in development, albeit in a new form.

“As part of our focus on reaching the widest possible audiences with breakthrough MMO entertainment, we decided to change the format of our project at Slipgate Ironworks to better achieve this aim,” said a statement from Gazillion.

“The game we’ll launch will build on the efforts to date with a smaller core team and the other Slipgate staff are already in discussions around the many open positions across our slate of projects.”

More through the link.

Just as Endrant Studios finished pushing Wolfenstein out the door, the big bad wolf that is financial troubles came and blew the developer’s house down. Or part of it, anyway.

“We have recently completed a development cycle and have regrettably been forced to make adjustments to staff and headcounts,” a company rep told GamesIndustry.biz.

“Those affected are valued members of our team who have worked incredibly hard on our latest title. We hope that they land on their feet quickly.”

Wolfenstein was the (formerly) 17-person team’s first game. We join the rest of Endrant in hoping those who now find themselves unemployed don’t stay that way for long.

Crystal Dynamics has loosed another 25 staff, Eidos has confirmed to Kotaku, following around 30 redundancies in January.

“We can confirm that Crystal Dynamics has made a reduction of approximately 25 people at the San Francisco studio,” said the publisher in a statement.

“This decision is a reflection of the continued drive to focus resources at the studio. We would like to thank all of the employees affected by this difficult decision for their hard work during their time at Crystal and we wish them all the best in the future.”

More through there.

Kotaku’s rumouring that Bionic Commando developer GRIN’s dropped between 100 and 160 staff, citing “multiple sources”.

The firm, which has offices in Sweden, Spain and Indonesia, is rumored to be in the process of shuttering its Gothenburg and Barcelona-based sites.

Layoffs at its headquarters in Stockholm are rumored to amount to nearly 30.

Full thing through the link.

Up to 8,450 game industry professionals have lost their jobs since July 2008, according to analyst Wanda Meloni.

Around 6,300 jobs have been lost from the North American trade, the rest coming from Asia and the UK.

Meloni noted that multiple studios have bitten the dust during the period.

“A handful of others are on life support, operating with a skeletal workforce and actively looking for buyers,” she said.

More on Gama.

Empire, as expected, has gone bust.

The publisher’s properties have been sold to New World IP in the US, and its 49 staff have been laid off.

Administrator KPMG Restructuring has been appointed to wind down the company and is not seeking to sell the business.

“Despite the fact that the gaming industry has been relatively unscathed by the current recession, trading losses, development spend and a delay in recent new product approval had a fatal impact on the Empire’s cash flow,” said KPMG’s Ian Corfield.

“We are not looking to sell the business as a going concern and are effecting an orderly wind-down of Empire’s operations.”

More on GI.

MCV’s published an internal Empire memo which suggests that rumour of the company’s demise were on the money.

“It has been widely reported online that we have entered administration – this has not yet occurred. However it is highly likely that administrators will be appointed in the next few days,” said the note.

“It is also likely that administrators will move to make all the staff redundant. I anticipate that formal redundancy notices will be sent out to all staff upon appointment of the administrators. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is the unfortunate reality of our current situation.”

Sorry about that, Empire people. Full thing through the link.

According to this MCV report, Empire’s entered administration.

Says the piece, all staff have been sent home from the firm’s London offices and redundancies are being worked through.

An official announcement’s expected on Monday.

How many people lost their jobs at THQ-owned Big Huge Games last week? This Kotaku piece is rumouring 45 got the axe.

The site’s arrived at the figure by comparing the developer’s current staff page with a cached version. There used to be 125 – 80 remain.

There’s no official confirmation as to how many people lost their jobs as yet.

Layoffs are happening over at Big Huge Games.

The Baltimore, MD, studio was informed by THQ a few weeks ago that if a buyer wasn’t found, the Catan and Rise of Nations developer would be shut down.

“These actions were unfortunate but were necessitated by the difficult economic environment,” said THQ.

It is not known at this time how many staff have been made redundant, nor what will become of the firm’s current project – an RPG by Elder Scrolls creator Ken Rolston.

Thanks, Develop.

NCsoft’s reported Q4 financials, showing a 22 percent loss despite an 11 percent sales rise.

The news comes nipping at the heels of lay-offs and restructuring reports on Wednesday.

Fans wanting Guild Wars 2 will suffer because of this, with the game has been pushed into 2010/2011 to focus more on the release of MMO Aion this year.

Having proved so successful in Korea, the company plans on releasing Aion in Japan in the third quarter. The US and Europe will get the game in Q4.

More over on Massively.

Joystiq is rumouring that between 60 and 130 people have been laid off at Mythic.

Some of redundancies are apparently from WAR development staff, supposedly including senior designers.

Mark Jacobs, however, made a statement on the official Warhammer Online site claiming that staffing numbers are attributed to consumer need and progress with game design.

“With respect to customer service, quality assurance and play testing, prior to the launch of WAR, we hired additional people to deal with the rush of demand associated with an MMO launch,” he said.

“Since the launch last year, the demand for customer service has gone down as players become more familiar with the game. Obviously, demand for a large QA and play-testing staff also falls after launch. As a result, we saw a staff reduction which is in line with the company-wide initiative.”

We’ve contacted Mark for a further statement.