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Warner Bros. Games announces layoffs at San Francisco studio

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member
WB_Games_Header_2.png

Warner Bros. Games has seemingly laid off a number of employees at its San Francisco studio, which houses the company's Digital Publishing division while also producing mobile titles.

A number of senior employees impacted by the cuts shared the news on LinkedIn, with one person indicating their entire team was eliminated.

"Hey everyone, at the end of the month my team and position will be eliminated here at WB and I will be back in the market for a job
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That post was published roughly a month ago and indicated the cuts would be made at the end of December 2025. One employee—who worked at the studio for over a decade—stated their departure came as a result of layoffs in a Linkedin post shared earlier this week.

Another person also took to Linkedin to explain their role has been eliminated. "My time at WB was invaluable, and I have learned so much from the experiences and connections I've made while working on DC Worlds Collide and MultiVersus," they added.

 
Didn't they say things were going to improve?

The worst mistake... well, among the thousands they've made.

The most unforgivable is the closure of Monolith.
 
As if the acquisition of WB wasn't depressing enough. Expect more layoffs as Netflix prepares to pay down the massive debt it's about to incur.
 
I'm almost 30 hours into Hogwarts Legacy. This game is has kept me busy every since it was given away on Epic store.
WB did a fine job here. Are these the folks who made it? or was that in a different part of the world?
 
Magic Carpet said:
I'm almost 30 hours into Hogwarts Legacy. This game is has kept me busy every since it was given away on Epic store.
WB did a fine job here. Are these the folks who made it? or was that in a different part of the world?
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Avalanche primarily made that. They're based out of Utah.

And yeah, amazing game.
 
Fermbiz said:
They need to fire the QA team at NRS
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I'm assuming you're saying this because the game is buggy? I don't play MK since MK Trilogy.

Usually, most of the bugs you encounter in a software application are already documented. Upper management decides to ship as is and work through them with patches.

They can also decide what to never fix.
 
K' Dash said:
Usually, most of the bugs you encounter in a software application are already documented. Upper management decides to ship as is and work through them with patches.

They can also decide what to never fix.
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Are you even a software company if you don't have tech debt you never address?
 
Fermbiz said:
They need to fire the QA team at NRS
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Signalis said:
Most of the dev team as well.
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The series is in desperate need of a refresh.

I can't believe they made MK9 and then just spiraled downward with each iteration after it.
K' Dash said:
lol, yeah. Most people here don't know anything about software development and blame the devs like they're the ones calling the shots.
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Many here know everything about things they have no experience in apparently, lol.
 
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Heimdall_Xtreme said:
They can't even spell "San Francisco" in the Road Runner video game. credits game

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Come on dude, that's a SNES game, published by Sunsoft and developed by ICOM (Never knew they did action games. I played their adventure games as a teenager and young adult).

Anyways, I hope that the new Atari buys up all the Atari Games and Tengen IP and put it to good use.
 
Magic Carpet said:
I'm almost 30 hours into Hogwarts Legacy. This game is has kept me busy every since it was given away on Epic store.
WB did a fine job here. Are these the folks who made it? or was that in a different part of the world?
Click to expand...
OP says this studio was digital publishing + mobile game development so I'm guessing no.
 
Draugoth said:
WB_Games_Header_2.png

Warner Bros. Games has seemingly laid off a number of employees at its San Francisco studio, which houses the company's Digital Publishing division while also producing mobile titles.

A number of senior employees impacted by the cuts shared the news on LinkedIn, with one person indicating their entire team was eliminated.



That post was published roughly a month ago and indicated the cuts would be made at the end of December 2025. One employee—who worked at the studio for over a decade—stated their departure came as a result of layoffs in a Linkedin post shared earlier this week.

Another person also took to Linkedin to explain their role has been eliminated. "My time at WB was invaluable, and I have learned so much from the experiences and connections I've made while working on DC Worlds Collide and MultiVersus," they added.

Click to expand...
Love This GIF by Late Night with Seth Meyers
 
Havoc2049 said:
Come on dude, that's a SNES game, published by Sunsoft and developed by ICOM (Never knew they did action games. I played their adventure games as a teenager and young adult).

Anyways, I hope that the new Atari buys up all the Atari Games and Tengen IP and put it to good use.
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Saber said:
Probably has nothing to do with turds like Suicide Squad and Multiverse.
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Warner Bros. used to do a great job.

They sold very affordable games, but they were of outstanding quality, like Mad Max, Shadow of Mordor, Batman, and F.E.A.R. I bought a lot of their games because of their excellent value for money.
 
ReBurn said:
Not unexpected all things considered.
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It is a little unexpected as they are in the process of being aquired, usually the new owner takes a chainsaw to the workforce. But maybe this is just to make the books look a little better.
 
Gonzito said:
Is there anything good at all happening at this company?
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Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat and Lego games. None of them made in that studio. WB San Francisco makes mobile games and some publishing related tasks. Which can be done elsewhere for a way lower price and pretty likely with better quality.
 
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f~N_CH_1:3:3:3_SushiBoat said:
This thought literally stays rent free in my head and comes out once a week to just laugh and piss me off......
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Right?! It makes NO sense to me. I mean, the game was packed with content and was one of the best (if not THE best) feeling Mortal Kombat games IMO. Even the marketing behind it was GIGANTIC compared to the sequels that came after it. They had a soundtrack they were pushing, various peripherals and collaborations. It felt like after 9 they just gave up on all of that. Which is SO weird to me cause 9 clearly did very well.
 
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Knight of the Round said:
In my honest opinion, the whole clusterfuck began with 7. There should have never been an Armageddon in the first place. Stupid, stupid idea.
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MK7 was pretty good, but the series's biggest issue is trying to make it in to a massive story. And now they fucked themselves into a wall, and not only that nu-MK couldn't count even on gameplay to carry it. I am surprised none of the female cast were clothed in hijabs either.
 
StoopKidz said:
They are probably working 90%+ remotely and getting paid SF developer salaries... Bout time reality catches up to them.
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Remote jobs have you working nearby. The fantasy of "I'm remote working in Thailand" is something 1099 employees do for a small number of companies. I get that remote + COVID broke a lot of people being big mad their jobs weren't letting them do it but this attitude towards remote employees is getting stupider.
 
Puscifer said:
Remote jobs have you working nearby. The fantasy of "I'm remote working in Thailand" is something 1099 employees do for a small number of companies. I get that remote + COVID broke a lot of people being big mad their jobs weren't letting them do it but this attitude towards remote employees is getting stupider.
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You are jumping to conclusions based on what I said. And you cannot tell me that, on average, people working remotely are as productive as people working in the office fulltime. It doesn't matter if those people are 5 miles away from the office or 500.
 
Unbelievable sometimes how out of touch the leaders of a company like that can be. All they had to do was fund Hogwarts Legacy titles, Continue with the Batman : Arkham style games and Mortal Kombat without falling into the live service trap and they would have made bank, im sure of it.
 
B
StoopKidz said:
You are jumping to conclusions based on what I said. And you cannot tell me that, on average, people working remotely are as productive as people working in the office fulltime. It doesn't matter if those people are 5 miles away from the office or 500.
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I'm sure companies have metrics that can do that for them and let them determine if remote is appropriate or not.
 
StoopKidz said:
You are jumping to conclusions based on what I said. And you cannot tell me that, on average, people working remotely are as productive as people working in the office fulltime. It doesn't matter if those people are 5 miles away from the office or 500.
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Statistically factual bit of information here: On average workers that work remote are about 10% more productive than when they go into the office. Factors include travel time, distractions at work, busy work, etc. There's a lot of motivation to finish our work and enjoy our life rather than work and then commute home. Check out the multitude of studies!
 
The people dropping a laughing emoji at people losing their jobs really ought to be made aware of what awful cunts they are.
 
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