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Playstation Laying Off 900 People - Multiple Studios Effected (Insomniac/Guerilla/Firesprite) - London Studio Shuts Down

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Is this a discussion forum or a cult? If you dont like something you dont have to shut up about it. Stop being soft
I'm not, that's why I called you out on it. You're one of the worst frequent posters around here and most of the stuff you're posting is utter shite.

Your user tag is 100% spot on, btw: Represent(ative) of bad opinions
 
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Del_X

Member
this is a wildly stupid take lol

Since it's probably too late to cancel a PS5 Pro since the hardware is finalized and the contracts with AMD are signed I agree.

However I also think selling a $599 console with no disc drive is also going to be a hard sell outside of a very small crowd.
 

XXL

Member
That PlayStation Studios’ London Studio will close in its entirety
Top Gear No GIF by BBC America
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Imagine being the best studio in the industry and getting discarded like an aborted fetus by execs who got rich off of you.

The industry doesnt know how to value its own artists. This is why people leave the industry.
The game industry is "what have you done for me lately". I understand why ND hasn't put anything new out, but right now, that's the fact.

And lately they've come out with ports, Remakes and a cancelled live service that they should've known from the jump would've consumed the studio.

BTW, you can be assured that the lion's share of the ND layoffs will be focused on people who were on the live service farce. It's not that serious.

Theres literally nothing good about this.

If you enjoy Single Player AAA games, you should be worried. Point blank.
Go ahead and be worried, but I don't think this is a referendum on AAA single player games. This is a correction that needs to happen. You'll notice, as SlicedBread3 SlicedBread3 has, that all the studios namely affected were working on live service projects. Hulst even says in that post:

"Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of how we operate."

You can take it as lip service, which I'm sure it is to a degree, but he says this independent of the online stuff he talks about (also where the PC and mobile stuff comes up, coincidentally) in the next paragraph, and also says this later:

"Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan."


That reads less like the "lol screw SP" talk EA was spouting in 2011, and more like "So this live service shit is saturated, unpredictable, and isn't actually easier to produce like we thought it would be".
 
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That all really sucks. Wonder if vr development is being pulled back and hence why PC support is coming. Either way really bad for the people losing their jobs. This now has hit everyone, did everyone overhire last year? Definitely a trend across the board.

I hope not. VR in terms of what it can do for gaming is much more interesting on a 1P front than more (or more quickly accelerated) ports of games to PC.
 

tmlDan

Member
Since it's probably too late to cancel a PS5 Pro since the hardware is finalized and the contracts with AMD are signed I agree.

However I also think selling a $599 console with no disc drive is also going to be a hard sell outside of a very small crowd.
the pro consoles are for a smaller market, like the PS4 pro was. But to end the gen when you sold 54MM consoles is wildly stupid. That's what the person i quoted described.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I don't know so I am not asking rhetorically, I am really asking: isn't it the same for TV and movie productions? A lot of staff will be hired for that production and then let go afterwards?
Nope. Hollywood has unions for the the crew and they move from movie to movie. If there is downtime then the studio loses money which is why the studios continue to invest in movies to ensure they have something lined up for the crew after they are done shooting a movie.

Games industry is poorly managed. After they ship a game, they have nothing to do until Neil turns in a script and the lead designers map out a game. That stuff should happen in the pre-produciton stage BEFORE they ship their current game so the production team can immediately move to the next game but games industry has no idea how to run their own business.
 

Represent.

Represent(ative) of bad opinions
I'm not, that's why I called you out on it. You're one of the worst frequent posters around here and most of the stuff you're posting is utter shite.
So block me :messenger_tears_of_joy:

If you wanna dance, hold hands and agree on everything then I have no interest in interacting with you at all. Baby skin soft. "stop voicing your opinions on an opinion forum - Like all games " Give me a fucking break.

Some terrible news comes out im not gonna sing happy songs about it
 
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IFireflyl

Gold Member
I did. Well, the narrator did.


Again, you did what? "We tried to tell you," means nothing.
 

ByWatterson

Member
This isn’t games industry specific it’s happening in every sector globally.

Every tech sector for sure, and other industries are experiencing layoffs, but meager population growth (or in some cases population decline) in industrialized countries means that unemployment should stay very low for a very long time. This coming recession keeps being predicted, but all we've seen stateside is legit 4% growth, low unemployment, and wages now rising faster than inflation.

The global market is still recovering from inflation driven by supply line difficulties and over-printing, but the overall situation in the United States is...pretty good.
 
The game industry is "what have you done for me lately". I understand why ND hasn't put anything new out, but right now, that's the fact.

And lately they've come out with ports, Remakes and a cancelled live service that they should've known from the jump would've consumed the studio.

BTW, you can be assured that the lion's share of the ND layoffs will be focused on people who were on the live service farce. It's not that serious.


Go ahead and be worried, but I don't think this is a referendum on AAA single player games. This is a correction that needs to happen. You'll notice, as SlicedBread3 SlicedBread3 has, that all the studios namely affected were working on live service projects. Hulst even says in that post:

"Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of how we operate."

You can take it as lip service, which I'm sure it is to a degree, but he says this independent of the online stuff he's talking about (also where the PC and mobile stuff comes up, coincidentally), and also says this:

"Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan."


That reads less like the "lol screw SP" talk EA was spouting in 2011, and more like "So this live service shit is saturated, unpredictable, and isn't actually easier to produce like we thought it would be".

You might be right. I'm gonna go and read the full statement and see what can be discerned from it.

Because I'm sure there are lots of hot takes from folks not bothering to read the whole thing or discern what it means.
 

Elysium44

Banned
Nope. Hollywood has unions for the the crew and they move from movie to movie. If there is downtime then the studio loses money which is why the studios continue to invest in movies to ensure they have something lined up for the crew after they are done shooting a movie.

Games industry is poorly managed. After they ship a game, they have nothing to do until Neil turns in a script and the lead designers map out a game. That stuff should happen in the pre-produciton stage BEFORE they ship their current game so the production team can immediately move to the next game but games industry has no idea how to run their own business.

I was basing the question off of articles I've seen recently like these.





I seem to remember reading stories decades ago in the UK where household name TV actors would go on the dole or do blue collar jobs in-between roles, to pay the bills.
 
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FoxMcChief

Gold Member
Again, you did what? "We tried to tell you," means nothing.
Layoffs were inevitable. That’s what most of us figured would happen. I’m not some smarty dude bro. Writing was just on the wall when Sony set ridiculous goals and didn’t meet them. They needed to meet those lofty goals because of the short sided heavy deals they made.
 

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
So block me :messenger_tears_of_joy:

If you wanna dance, hold hands and agree on everything then I have no interest in interacting with you at all. Baby skin soft.
I don't like to block people, lol. I actually enjoy seeing all types of takes, even the outlandish ones. :p

But if you're leaving this hobby because of the direction the industry at large is going then you'll not be missed, and tbh it's your loss. ;)
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
Layoffs were inevitable. That’s what most of us figured would happen. I’m not some smarty dude bro. Writing was just on the wall when Sony set ridiculous goals and didn’t meet them. They needed to meet those lofty goals because of the short sided heavy deals they made.

I guess my point is the "we tried to tell you" seemed very console warrior-esque. The framing of that statement was akin to, "We tried to warn this rabid community of Sony fanboys, but nobody listened to us about Sony going to have layoffs." Bumblebeetuna Bumblebeetuna didn't have any inside information on this, nor did you. And very few people, if anyone, were arguing that Sony was immune to layoffs.
 
If I were Sony, I’d cancel the PS5 Pro, discontinue the PSVR2 and focus on ending this generation sooner, and push for the PS6 to release in late 2025 or early 2026. The industry needs to get the stink of this generation off of it.
If the goal is to kill consumer confidence....yeah that would be the way to go about it.
 
Sadly, when it comes to cutting costs, layoffs are usually what companies gears towards.

Salaries make up ~40-50% of a company’s expenses. And that’s just salaries. Not the benefits or payroll taxes of keeping employees, which is usually ~20-30% of salaries, depending on the benefits an employee gets.

So you can imagine how much money can be saved laying off 900 employees.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
Insomniac used to be on this list, wonder what happened
As far as I know it never was, I took that grab myself four months ago.

They worked as story consultant in Spider-Man 2, but evidently not enough for them to consider Insomniac clients?

Notice the chart is missing other Sony devs like Insomniac.
There always was a single, californian, Sony studio on that list.

So saying "Sweet Baby Inc. is core of Playstation brand" when nor Sony nor PlayStation are Sweet Baby clients to begin with, especially when on the other hand the entire industry is featured on the list including the totality of the competition, is bizarre at best.. retarded at worst.
 

Neilg

Member
Why?

What's happening in this industry?

Everyone spent the last few years expanding like mad and floating business expenses on 2% financing. now all those financing terms are drying up, and it's either renegotiate at 7% which drastically changes what risks you can take with someone elses money or pare things back and cut expenses.
This is not a crash, it's a correction
 

Unknown?

Member
The cost of everything is going up, so companies are tightening there belts.
I work in the luxury motor vehicle business and we have seen lay offs too, no one is buying luxury items like they used to.
The cost is not going up, the value of the currency is being eroded quickly thanks to all of the money created during covid.
 
The normal PR thing in these cases is a message of sadness for the decisions made but linked to a message of tranquility and a promising future. But what this message reflects is uncertainty.....



Perhaps a public demonstration of discontent with the appropriateness and logic of the decisions of the upper floor bosses?🤔
More a consequence of Sony not saying yet who will be fired. They will maybe try to ask people to retire or leave by themselves, then fire the rest to get their objective of 900 lay offs.
 

Bernardougf

Member
Just keep investing in gaas and triple AAA bloated 4 years to make cinematic wokish games.. it will be fine.

Dont forget about those knitting classes...
 
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It's like Sony and MS are competing which one of these companies can deliver the worst news.

Sony always does this. They let MS go first to take most of the heat and then they come and announce their own lol
??????

This is something that typically happens around a company’s financial period. We usually hear about Microsoft first because they have a different FY than Sony.

Investors/Shareholders will get worried if they don’t like the results and actions will take place to alleviate.
 

Mortisfacio

Member
Why?

What's happening in this industry?

Tech sector as a whole has been doing varying forms of layoffs. Some totally laying off, some laying off 10-15% and hiring elsewhere. Lot of restructuring due to the COVID boom. My company for example cut 10% of the staff, largely recruiters and "non-essential" staff, hired more engineers, then laid off 35% of staff.

It's been a wild time just turning my work laptop on, opening Slack, pinging some co-workers, seeing them respond, then suddenly stop typing and their account is de-activated.
 
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//DEVIL//

Member
??????

This is something that typically happens around a company’s financial period. We usually hear about Microsoft first because they have a different FY than Sony.

Investors/Shareholders will get worried if they don’t like the results and actions will take place to alleviate.
I know how it works . But this year has been the worst so far for both companies.
 
Imagine being the best studio in the industry and getting discarded like an aborted fetus by execs who got rich off of you.

The industry doesnt know how to value its own artists. This is why people leave the industry.

ND hasn’t been the best studio since PS3 era

They took like 8 years to make a Factions MP mode then didn’t even release it
 
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