that seems like a lot... right?
That's what, half the people in the credits for an Asscreed game?
Approximately 1000 between october 23 and February 24.
I saw that on a video about the video game industry.
Shedding all the people they hired because the laptop class had to go back to work.
They reduced their headcount in 1700, which doesn't mean they fired 1700 people.
They had a program to reduce the workforce across several years without having a huge layoff: They renewed less people with temporary contracts, hired less new people, got less contractors for new projects, compensated early retirements, managed to relocate people instead of firing them, etc.
As I remember the workers have 3 representatives in the board of directors.
How many people were laid off last week when Microsoft closed their studios?
We don't know it.
Is this whole woke push just an excuse for massive cutbacks?
No, as I remember the woke guidelines at Ubisoft were set around when the first The Division was under development (I was working there back then).
Cutbacks in game publishers are because the game market did stop growing and kept flat for the last couple of years, and the AAA budgets skyrocket every generation unlike the revenue they generate. So they had to cut the fact to be more profitable with less costs.
Specially a company specially bloated as Ubisoft is. Ubisoft has way, way more workers than other publishers who generate similar revenue (and unlike Ubi are more profitable). If there is a big publisher that since many years ago had to reduce its workforce and optimize their workflow and productivity/profitability is Ubisoft.
