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Tom Henderson: Around 40% of Toys for Bob (Crash and Spyro) dev team was laid off
Skifi28
Member
I'm afraid it's not just this industry. We're in for a very rough year.
SEGAvangelist
Member
This is the biggest bummer for me. I was hoping for a good platformer from this team.
Team Andromeda
Member
I expected job losses in HR and QA, but this is horrible and a stupid move to lay off talented developers. This sucks
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Ok, are we entering a recession or is gaming just fucked?
Skifi28
Member
I was under they impression they were just doing COD support.
Punished Miku
Gold Member
This is one I don't particularly understand. I'll wait and see what info about this studio leaks out in the coming weeks, or see what their next project is. Seems easy to put these guys on Banjo and get some demand.
I think their Crash games look nice, but all sucked, and I had no interest in buying them. But they still had potential for a different, Banjo-like, direction.
I think their Crash games look nice, but all sucked, and I had no interest in buying them. But they still had potential for a different, Banjo-like, direction.
I don't think ABK employees would think they'd start regretting Kotick as soon as he had left lmao.
Lot of these employees were very naive and ill-informed. Microsoft is one of the worst corpos in the world, and they won't make them work on fulfilling projects. Employees should have fought againt the acquisition. But they did not take the time to inform themselves.
Lot of these employees were very naive and ill-informed. Microsoft is one of the worst corpos in the world, and they won't make them work on fulfilling projects. Employees should have fought againt the acquisition. But they did not take the time to inform themselves.
Damn....
Yup. And some folks are still trying to gaslight ppl saying it wasnt devs being fired.
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
"trimming the fat"
SEGAvangelist
Member
Yes, but as developers of Crash Bandicoot, they obviously have the chop for a game like Banjo (or another Crash of course).
Most of the dev firings looks justified so far. Sledgehammer is an obvious one with how how consistently poor their CoD campaigns are. The survival games from Blizzard was 6 years in the making with 2-3 still to go. That obviously had to go. These Toys for Bob layoffs are upsetting, though.
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Skifi28
Member
Gambit2483
Member
I wish them the best and hope they can recover from this. They were one of my favorites, keeping that AA market alive and well.
Team Andromeda
Member
There are always job losses and I get that. This makes no sense IMO.
XBox has always had an issue with AAA platform games to call its own and Toys For Bob are experts in this sort of genre
Jigsaah
Gold Member
Sucks they lost their job, but if it's redundant...I mean it's not charity. Gotta streamline somehow.
If I made a multi-billion dollar purchase and I found that people were in positions that were no longer necessary, I would first try to find a new useful spot for them. Ultimately, if that's not possible then yea, what else are you gonna do?
I wish there was some kind of centralized system for lay offs where people could easily connect with another employer in the industry who might need their talents. It might lessen the blow and ease the minds of the folks affected. Something like a LinkedIn but just for the gaming industry.
I also think there should be some type of law where if a company is making cost cutting measures a portion of that cost cutting has to come directly from the executives salaries. Phil should not be making the same money he's making since he and other execs made these decisions. They say the decision was so tough...well put your money where your mouth is Phil.
If I made a multi-billion dollar purchase and I found that people were in positions that were no longer necessary, I would first try to find a new useful spot for them. Ultimately, if that's not possible then yea, what else are you gonna do?
I wish there was some kind of centralized system for lay offs where people could easily connect with another employer in the industry who might need their talents. It might lessen the blow and ease the minds of the folks affected. Something like a LinkedIn but just for the gaming industry.
I also think there should be some type of law where if a company is making cost cutting measures a portion of that cost cutting has to come directly from the executives salaries. Phil should not be making the same money he's making since he and other execs made these decisions. They say the decision was so tough...well put your money where your mouth is Phil.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
When it comes to tech companies with big pockets, you never know when you got a CEO who has moneybags and will float the boat, or a penny pincher who will gas entire office buildings if things dont go well.
Twitter is a great example of a CEO whose company never made money in 15 years, had employee count growing, and even admitted after Musk bought it there's too many people working at the company. BUT, Twitter employees at the time got lucky Jack Dorsey seemed like a bottomless pockets kind of CEO. When Musk took over it was the opposite.
As for Kotick vs MS. Just like any job in life, the grass isnt always greener on the other side.
Well, of course it was redundant, they made original games, who need that? Now they will be part of CoD factory! Good thing for the industry, congratulations to all gamers.
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Jigsaah
Gold Member
Sarcasm aside, they still have people making original games. I don't think this is the issue. COD will be fine. Sledgehammer though has been known for years as the red headed step child of the COD developers. I'm surprised Activision didn't do this themselves.
thebigmanjosh
Member
The same group of consultants are advising these companies to aggressively get lean, and to rightsize explosive tech salaries. These companies are reporting record revenue and profits - this has everything to do with greed and appeasing shareholders
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
Just companies like Xbox and Embracer who ate more than they could chew.
Magic Carpet
Member
Any news on DoubleFine?
They have made one game so far and it was already being worked on before they were scooped up by Microsoft.
In the Documentary Doublefine employees got raises as a result of being scooped up.
I Just assumed Toys for Bob would be treated in a similar manner, not shown the door.
They have made one game so far and it was already being worked on before they were scooped up by Microsoft.
In the Documentary Doublefine employees got raises as a result of being scooped up.
I Just assumed Toys for Bob would be treated in a similar manner, not shown the door.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Possibly but i dont think so. Unemployment rates are rock bottom again and inflation is cooling off. The only big thing that might do it is with the high mortgage rates. Anyone who has to do a new mortgage or renew at the current rates will have big payments. And just like 2008, if you can float a wild 2% special deal mortgage, but cant afford a 5% mortgage when the promo is over, then youre fucked. Thats no different than now where mortgages were 2-3% for ages (mine bottomed at 1.2% for a stretch!), but renewing is now about 6%, then youre fucked too.
Horseganador
Member
Almost half of the workforce laid off...
Cyberpunkd
Member
Fire Bobby? You bet. LGBT all day long? Sure!
Taking a hard stance against layoffs and putting pressure on the management?
What a disgrace of a union.
Tal Shiar Agent
Member
Tech and gaming, being unable to see past the next quarter, grew irresponsibly during the pandemic bump and found themselves in a pit now that things have normalized.
Capitalism's focus on infinite growth rather than responsible sustainability claims more victims.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
And people were suggesting Microsoft buy the PalWorld studio.
a multicultural team of v
Member
The companies did this to themselves. The whole industry has embraced the FOMO flavor of the week massive hype model (both GaaS and non-GaaS), seemingly without any developer stopping to ask themselves, "what if this particular game game in development isn't a home run?" And when they do, like when Sony clearly did, they realize that they have to cancel basically everything in development because it makes no sense financially.
To be fair, gamers absolutely led them there with their obsession with Twitch streamer/social media hype, but unfortunately we all now have to suffer the consequences until this painful readjustment is done.
Holammer
Member
It's happening elsewhere, like news media. But I think it's more pronounced in this industry because the Covid induced growth spurt is waning.
Remember how Switches & Animal Crossing flew of the shelves, record engagement numbers on Steam etc.
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
Feels more like an Xbox crash. Until I see otherwise, Nintendo and PlayStation are suffering nothing close to this.
Outside of gaming, however, there's a lot of this happening.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Also, games seem to take longer and cost a ton more to make. So if the sales arent there, then there's goes the studio.
If this was the PS1/Saturn era, if a game sold 1-2M copies that'd be considered a Greatest Hits game, surely made the company money and everyone's happy. Time for aa sequel which only took two years to do. Now, a game that sells 1-2M copies is a disaster unless it's a small indie game where the stakes arent high to begin with.
So unless it's a big seller or a game whose mtx revenue outweighs modest cost structure like a mobile game, it's pretty hard for a AAA game to be worth doing unless it sells like 8M copies. Some of these budgets thrown around are gigantic and doesn't even include marketing on top of it.
It's like movies. Unless the movie can make shit loads of more ticket sales to make it worth it (they dont have mtx reoccurring revenue like a game), it better sell like $600M of theatre tickets or it's a financial clunker.
The budgets are out of control, the quantity of AAA games released are fewer and far between which makes it more pressure sensitive for that game to be a smash hit. There's also shitloads of games always coming out whether it's indie games or full budget games, and the most popular GAAS games are time sinks. The old gen of gaming had gamers always rotating games because you buy it, beat it over a week, sell/trade it and buy another game. Now, some gamers are probably 24/7 Fortnite or COD or Counterstrike gamers. Great for those studios as they got loyal gamers spending all their money on them, but bad for all other studios who need gamers to spread out their wallet.
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willothedog
Member
Why, when did either those aquire a company as large as ABK?
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
Come again?
Holammer
Member
MS organization is much larger and more bloated than the completion, but Sony axed Pixelopus last year (a very small studio), 20 employees at Media Molecule and the recent Insomniac hack suggested layoffs and a studio closure being imminent.
Companies like Nintendo & Valve run a tight ship, so I don't expect much from them.
HeWhoWalks
Gold Member
Yes, layoffs will happen industry wide, but not to this degree. The size only means more people, but percentages are key.
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nush
Member
They can hire them back at a lower rate now. They know what they are doing.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
I only have one example from Nintendo in terms of a tight ship. So take it as you want as overarching truthful or a misleading one off.
But my buddy who I worked with for years jumped ship to work at Nintendo Canada during the Wii years. So were talking great sales. Our experiences coming from big companies are floors of people with lots of different departments and roles.
He quit Nintendo. He said it was a shit show. Wii is a smash hit and at his role he had to do: sales, analysis, category analysis, admin work etc.... A lot of that shit is spliced out into different roles at big companies. At Nintendo, he's like a handful of us are fucking one man shows who have to do everything. Since I've had a finance kind of role for almost my entire career, I'd ask him who does my role there as I'd help him with finance stuff when we worked together. He's like.... I do all that myself too.
Ad he also said Nintendo Japan called the shots for everything. There was like zero autonomy.
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