Game loft shuts down India studio suddenly

slipsius

Talk about shady....

According to one source, employees were asked to sign two letters before leaving: a form saying they were leaving for personal reasons rather than being laid off (pre-dated from yesterday, January 28th) and an acceptance of resignation from Gameloft dated Tuesday the 29th. That source tells us that he and others have not signed the letters yet, describing them as "fishy."

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/185669/250_out_of_work_as_Gameloft_suddenly_shuts_down_its_India_studio.php#.URkV2GeHP0d

d1ver

Andreas

Who in their right minds would sign letters like that?

What a scummy company.

GarageBay9

That... will not end well for Gameloft.

D4V1DC

Wow.

Well words of a lawsuit or two to start, hope those employees win, I'd like to think of it as a push back from us works against these sort of horrible cut-backs/closures/loss of income/unemployment strategies/tax write offs.

Dylan Brady

I can't obviously put myself in their position. but what would possibly motivate the employees to sign that document? is there there perhaps threats/coercion being used?

Slipstream

Furthermore, we're just supposed to believe that all 250 employee's just happened to decide to leave Gameloft for personal reasons? At the same time? What?

PixelMasher

ive had a company want me to sign a thing saying i wont sue or whatever before they would hand over the severance cheque. pretty twat style thats for sure, luckily I had another job offer within 40 mins of leaving the building, so i really didnt give a shit. could be a way of gameloft forcing them to sign to get any severance pay.

slipsius

Well, if they sign saying its their own choice, then they dont get severence, i would assume.

Apparently they did it last month too. Fired 70 lead people, doing the same thing. Sign this, saying its for personal reasons or we wont give you a good reference/cv.

Justin Meisse

companies that offer severence pay when it isn't required by law are either:

run by glowing angels that always want to do the right thing by their employees

using the severence pay as hush money or a way to skirt layoff laws

ambershee

In India severance pay is required. Employment law over there follows a British model. Having everyone sign a document saying they're leaving of their own accord is basically their way of refusing to pay it - dubious as fuck when your parent company is boasting profits to the media on the same day.

Justin Meisse

yeah, it's my belief that there are two types of multinational companies: those that get caught pulling shit like this and those that don't.

oXYnary

If Gameloft bribes the local politicians, they very well may get off Scott free.

Ace-Angel

Some things to note after going through the comment sections and just in general:

-They have about 3 studio's in Vietnam which are doing the Java and Android ports, same as the one in India.

-While India's law is rooted in British Laws, Software developers aren't under that law, STPI Act favor the Employer, and makes many of the stuff void for Game Dev's.

-India = ~5% of their current workforce, and India was open for about 8 years before today's shut down.

-HQ Paris asked for the shut down, and said "They weren't making enough of a profit" (please note again, that India simply ports the games and Vietnam is still functioning).

-No one was forced to sign the document, many didn't, and management (the guys relaying the information) were uneasy about it.

Two reasons that pop to mind:

A) Very scrummy action, most likely see Eastern Studio's starting to demand higher pay to their western counter-parts, so cut it off to save money in the long run, with more direct control over the workforce.

or;

Considering how India recently has come under fire as a country, all the way from Socio-Economical management to every day affairs varying from law enforcement, human rights, etc, they decided legging it now to avoid any future issues in a volatile location, and maybe return a few years later.

ambershee

Ace-Angel wrote: »

-While India's law is rooted in British Laws, Software developers aren't under that law, STPI Act favor the Employer, and makes many of the stuff void for Game Dev's.

Doesn't bypass a mass layoff of an entire studio workforce though, just makes it easier to manage layoffs of between 20 and 50 people. That's what the agreement papers were for.

Ace-Angel wrote: »

A) Very scrummy action, most likely see Eastern Studio's starting to demand higher pay to their western counter-parts, so cut it off to save money in the long run, with more direct control over the workforce.

It's this one unfortunately. India isn't the cheap option any more and it's been superceded in this case by Vietnam.