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[StreetsofBeige]

Afraid this was telegraphed when we found out their stock lost $10 billion last week.

Hopefully those affected have had enough time to sort another job out. I'm guessing the likes of MM are preparing for the worst......

Sonys biggest division is gaming. So when it comes to financials, all eyes beeline to PS first.

When times are rolling, sit back and rake in the sales and profits while new studios and employee count goes up. When times are tough, time to cut back and it goes the other way.

 

[FoxMcChief]

This has me wondering how the board and other higher ups at Sony really feel about Jim Ryan. I mean, do they blame him? Is he the reason that 900 people lost a job today, due to decisions he made?

 

[PSlayer]

Sony won't be the last. Expect bungie and Rocksteady next.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

This has me wondering how the board and other higher ups at Sony really feel about Jim Ryan. I mean, do they blame him? Is he the reason that 900 people lost a job today, due to decisions he made?

 

[mitch1971]

Here goes a positive slant.

These 900 could of been absolute cunts to work with.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Well, the times are bad and the business is not growing? Also, the PS5 sales are expected to decline in 2024?

The decline is typical as for PlayStation hardware, usually the third FY is the peak year. Also, the declines for the 4th FY are very soft.

FWIW the target for FY '23 was insanely high, and they will likely only miss it by ~ 2 million. There could always be factors BTS why they are predicting a decline in hardware sales though and for all we know they could be preparing for a bigger-than-normal decline which could potentially be a point of concern.

However, I kind of doubt that is the case here.

 

[semiconscious]

Twitter CEO Elon Musk said the company has laid off more than 6,000 employees, around 80% of its workforce, since he purchased the company late last year and began aggressively cutting costs, in an interview Tuesday with the BBC.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/elon-musk-says-6-000-twitter-employees-laid-17893290.php

& yet twitter somehow continues to function?...

tech industry work forces in general have been overloaded for a while now. not to mention, the first industry targeted by 'ai'? the same industry that created it...

 

[StreetsofBeige]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/elon-musk-says-6-000-twitter-employees-laid-17893290.php

& yet twitter somehow continues to function?...

tech industry work forces in general have been overloaded for a while now. not to mention, the first industry targeted by 'ai'? the same industry that created it...

Pretty much. It’s an industry with too much money floating around for salaries and swanky offices, poor financial controls, and entertainment industry as a whole whether it’s games, movies or pro athlete contracts can shoot to the stratosphere and nobody blinks an eye until it crashes hard and companies or product lines go belly up.

 

[CamHostage]

Is anyone going to mention the fact that nothing of note happened to their Japanese workforce? Even with Hiroki Totoki (Chairman) and Jim Ryan (Representative Director and President) being the heads of SIEI in Tokyo, they cannot do much there.

They already pulled that trigger when they closed Japan Studio in 2021.

 

[Superkewl]

Why?

What's happening in this industry?

Seems to be happening everywhere across the entire tech industry. I would imagine it is a combination of over-hiring during covid, and access to low interest loans and plenty of venture capital flooding the industry.

Because of irresponsible govt spending all over the world during covid, this lead to high inflation, which in turn lead central banks to raise interest rates. Now that loans are no longer cheap, companies need to rely on cost cutting measures to stay afloat. The worst part is, everyone knew this was going to happen, but governments and corpos alike, just kept kicking the can down the road.

I am just a layman, not an economist, but that is my understanding of the situation.

 

[Lokaum D+]

Why?

What's happening in this industry?

the industry is sick, they don't make games anymore, they want to make barely functional products ( 90% gaas ), then they throw a bunch of MTX and expect consumers to eat that shit, so when that shit product fails, they don't understand why, then you have have to cut costs somewhere to maintain shareholder profits, then you had a lot of layoffs.

these layoff are not consumers fault, they are results of shareholders forcing shit ideias and bad management.

 

[nial]

They already pulled that trigger when they closed Japan Studio in 2021.

When they replaced it with the Japanese PS Studios division and kept doing both their internal and external development operations? Yeah.
I still need to hear something about Polyphony Digital, btw.
Edit: would be nice if u read this Punished Miku

 

[Nydius]

Maybe a tangential rant but I hate when guys like Warren and Scherier frame this like it's a games-industry-only thing. I understand that's where their main coverage lies but layoffs are getting bad across almost all tech sectors in the west, not just in games development. Between outsourced work, AI, and post-COVID course correction, this year is going to be a mess in any CS/IT industry.

I mean, I get it. "Big company lays off big number of staff" gets eyeballs; "Regional bank lays off 70% of all CS and IT staff" doesn't. But I just hate how there are going to be people out there reading these headlines thinking this is happening only in the gaming space.

 

[saintjules]

 

[salva]

Twisted Metal live service game canceled.

The one game I wanted to get me to buy a ps5!

 

[Punished Miku]

When they replaced it with the Japanese PS Studios division and kept doing both their internal and external development operations? Yeah.
I still need to hear something about Polyphony Digital, btw.
Edit: would be nice if u read this Punished Miku

I read it dude, I just don't buy it. Actual people that worked at Sony don't work there now. People like the director of Siren, Gravity Rush. They didn't keep everything. This has been known for a long time. Asobo is okay with one free mini-game I played but is not the same thing. Asobo and Japan Studio both existed previously.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

For you guys saying the industry is oversaturated, sick or too much gaas pissing gamers off.

Just skip em. Dig into Xbox, Ps, or steam indie games for $20 and gove them a whirl.

All I know is playing balatro over the weekend for $20 has been a totally refreshing game to play. Ya I get it… its a bland retro looking deck building card game which every gamer will likely have enough at some point as you can only go so far before giving up. But hey it doesn’t have budget busting production values. And it’s only $20 with no mtx (at least not yet)

 

[Vyse]

This sucks. Sad to hear.

 

[nial]

I read it dude, I just don't buy it. Actual people that worked at Sony don't work there now. People like the director of Siren, Gravity Rush. They didn't keep everything. This has been known for a long time. Asobo is okay with one free mini-game I played but is not the same thing. Asobo and Japan Studio both existed previously.

Which is pretty much another matter, but thinking that they were the end of all for SIE's Japanese operations is simply foolish.
Same with believing that Team Asobi (previously just a group inside their internal development department) will just keep doing tech demos from now on.
I do blame Sony for this tho, they pretty much tricked everyone into believing that Japan Studio was a thing since the very beginning, when they didn't exist until fucking 2005.

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

I blame Madame Web...

 

[Clear]

Not to be a dick about it, but this should have happened a long time ago. Sony's UK studios have been a shit-show of incompetent management for well over 20 years.

 

[{insert code here}]

There is no such thing as the middle class, it's a fiction foisted upon the lower class by the ruling class to maintain the illusion of social mobility and keep down unrest.

What a fucking absolute miserable existence it's got to be to see the world through this kind of lens.

 

[Thaimasker]

A sign of the real economy but my elected leaders tell me things are great and present me with fake data showing low unemployment and job growth!

You do understand
1. These companies are making more money than ever. This is the result of greed and an infinite growth mindset. Not because they need to do it. Same with rising prices.
2. A lot of these layoffs are in other countries too.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

If only we'd pay more for games!

 

[Audiophile]

I'd do it

Spoiler: i'm sorry...

 

[adamsapple]

I'd do it

You ignorant slut.

 

[SidViscous]

She left rocksteady to work for London studios, poor child is cursed!

 

[hemo memo]

Twisted Metal live service game canceled.

“Live-service” good riddance.

 

[CamHostage]

Which is pretty much another matter, but thinking that they were the end of all for SIE's Japanese operations is simply foolish.
Same with believing that Team Asobi (previously just a group inside their internal development department) will just keep doing tech demos from now on.
I do blame Sony for this tho, they pretty much tricked everyone into believing that Japan Studio was a thing since the very beginning, when they didn't exist until fucking 2005.

...Which isn't at all what I said. I was commenting on your post, "...nothing of note happened to their Japanese workforce", which A. is unknown at the moment whether Polyphony Digital or Asobi are affected in this layoff count (or any staffers in the XDEV program, for that matter,) but B. is partly the case because there's much less of the Japanese workforce to have something happen to after the closure of Japan Studio.

Japan is still a territory for SIE, sure, (if we have to get into this,) but they did close that office and they laid off many producers who incubate and greenlight games with external development partners under the Japan Studio banner. (Some of that responsibility has since been absorbed by XDEV, but as far as I know Junichi Yoshizawa is no longer there and he produced stuff like Freedom Wars and Patapon with external developers, Teruyuki Toriyama is also gone and he produced Fromsoft's Bloodborne and Deracine.) And then they let go of the internal teams of directors/designers/developers who were working on projects internally. Whether or not Rayspace was a real thing, nothing from the crew is every going to be released because they're not working at Sony anymore.

Asobi survived, thankfully, PD is still active, and XDEV is around to hear new product pitches from Japanese studios (although so far, I believe nothing of Japanese descent has been released or revealed since PS5's launch period outside GT7,) but that era is over and whatever else comes from Japanese developers under the PlayStation publishing label will have been created under a different studio structure than what existed with SCEI / Japan Studio.

(When you say 2005, BTW, are you talking about SCE Worldwide Studios? Japan Studio was not formalized as an independent developer for some of its run, it was just a bunch of people inside the SCEI offices who made games, and most of the games anyone thinks of as "Japan Studio" games were actually developed by partners, but Japan Studio was making games wholly in the office as early as Ape Escape and Legend of Dragoon.)

 

[hemo memo]

I blame Madame Web...

We all do.

 

[clarky]

hopefully, this means that they actually cooking some good shit
I guess their low margin is one of the main reason for these lay offs?


Nonetheless, seems like every tech/game company laying off staff, hope they can find jobs asap, hard to live without a stable job these days.

They've yet to release a decent game, why would they start now?

 

[MDSLKTR]

 

[Unknown?]

You do understand
1. These companies are making more money than ever. This is the result of greed and an infinite growth mindset. Not because they need to do it. Same with rising prices.
2. A lot of these layoffs are in other countries too.

Are they? One of the biggest criticisms of their latest financial reports is that the gaming division has very low profit for the massive revenue.

If you're talking tech in general, I don't know about how much profit they are bringing in.

I do know the economy where SIE is headquartered is doing poorly though.

 

[IAmRei]

hard times indeed ...
feels bad with affected team. hopefully they can safely landed.

 

[clarky]

Why?

What's happening in this industry?

Western studios?

They stopped working overtime.
Diversity hires.
Spiraling budgets.
Low profit margins.
Terrible GAAS nobody wants.
Unfinished buggy products.

The list is endless. This is just the start imo.

The western games industry is ripe for a proper crash and wipeout, and will be better for it once it comes out of the other side.

 

[hemo memo]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Western studios?

They stopped working overtime.
Diveristy hires.
Spiraling budgets.
Low profit margins.
Terrible GAAS nobody wants.
Unfinished buggy products.

The list is endless. This is just the start imo.

The western games industry is ripe for a proper crash and wipeout, and will be better for it once it comes out of the other side.

And ugly female characters in games. Lol.

The only part of the entertainment industry where companies purposely try to make women uglier even when the actress hired for face and animations can be good looking in real life! Go figure.

Movies. Tv shows, sports telecasts, tv ads, your typical booth girl at a convention, heck even tried and true romance covers still have great looking starlets who are dolled up as well as macho guys.

 

[PSlayer]

You do understand
1. These companies are making more money than ever. This is the result of greed and an infinite growth mindset. Not because they need to do it. Same with rising prices.
2. A lot of these layoffs are in other countries too.

Revenue is not profit, people have to stop conflating these two concepts. Budgets are out of control to the point where a game has to sell almost 10 million copies at full price just to break even.

I did some math after the insominiac and Naughty dog budget leaks. A game with a 400 million budget(development+marketing) needs to sell 8+ million copies at $70 a piece to break even. And guess what? we are getting there budget wise.

How many ips can sell so much at that price? Something has to give. Either we start paying $100 for games + microtransactions + $60 DLCs or companies will have to scale down and adopt a japanese style of development(smaller teams iterating in the same formula over and over and over like Nintendo,From software, Bamco,Capcom,etc...)

There is a crash coming and it will hit north america and west europe really hard.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

They already pulled that trigger when they closed Japan Studio in 2021.

They still have Polyphony Digital and Team Asobi, though, and neither of them were affected by the layoffs.

Also probably just worth mentioning again that most of Japan Studio got folded into Team Asobi. Though, having the Ico and Silent Hill team members depart sucked.

And at least D:AS has Twinkle Riot. I'd take her and that cake any day over whatever monstrosities were in Bleeding Ass.

 

[Gamerguy84]

273,000 layoffs is 2023 in total.

A comprehensive list of 2023 & 2024 tech layoffs | TechCrunch

A complete list of all the known layoffs in tech, from Big Tech to startups, broken down by month throughout 2023 and 2024.

techcrunch.com

 

[GHG]

 

[nial]

...Which isn't at all what I said. I was commenting on your post, "...nothing of note happened to their Japanese workforce", which A. is unknown at the moment whether Polyphony Digital or Asobi are affected in this layoff count (or any staffers in the XDEV program, for that matter,)

I was mostly responding to Miku in that post, but after getting details on what studios were affected in all of this, it's kinda clear nothing worth talking about happened in Japan. I mean, this is what they had to say in the matter.

• In Japan, we will implement a next career support program. Details will be communicated separately.

but B. is partly the case because there's much less of the Japanese workforce to have something happen to after the closure of Japan Studio.

There is still not proof of this being the case even after the ""closure"" (more like a reorganization) of WWS Japan Studio. You can point out some producers leaving SIEI and all that, but it never made such a huge difference.
Polyphony Digital had ~300 employees as of 2 years ago.

Asobi survived

Team Asobi didn't just "survive", they were essentially reintroduced as a brand new studio department in replacement of Japan Studio IDD, which you know, took a lot of money investment.

Bleeding Edge would wish to be as fun as Knack.

 

[clarky]

If you pat yourselves on the back while doing knitting and yoga and turning out nothing of value while working from home what do you expect?

*this was completely made up, maybe london studios was full of grafters pulling 80 hour weeks, but thats doubtful tbh.

 

[Elysium44]

The Diversity Award

Would be ironic if the diversity hires got the sack first.

 

[GHG]

If you pat yourselves on the back while doing knitting and yoga and turning out nothing of value while working from home what to you expect?

*this was completely made up, maybe london studios was full of grafters pulling 80 hour weeks, bit thats doubtful tbh.

Too busy getting diversity awards to be doing any work.

 

[clarky]

Too busy getting diversity awards to be doing any work.

Go us! or is it they? i cant keep up these days.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

"work"

 

[nial]

People never cared for London Studio that much, but Blood & Truth was amazing and it was already sad to see them moving on to make GaaS. And now they're gone.

 

[winjer]

"Was"

 

[GHG]

Go us! or is it they? i cant keep up these days.