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Krome australia layoffs.

polycounter lvl 10
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Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/08/krome-lays-off-100-employees-shuts-adelaide-studio/

And yet more bad news to come out of australia. I dont think there is anyone here from krome but i wish them luck to land on their feet.


Makes me feel even more lucky to be in one of the few companies that is growing... seems to be the minority here in aus.

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  • tanka
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    tanka polycounter lvl 12
    This is a huge blow to the Australian games industry. I'm pretty sure that Krome was the largest independent game company in the world, and definitely one of the biggest players in the Australian games industry.

    It seems that all the smaller games companies in this country are doing good though. Halfbrick and Soap spring to mind. I guess that's where the Australian games industry is headed.. and it's not neccessarily a bad thing.
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    Problem is that krome has been too bloated to react to the sudden industry changes, in the last 2 years the stream of licensed titles has dried up, and the few project that remain are calling for much higher quality. (ive heard rumour of putting metacritic score in contracts.)

    They started to work on their own ip, but im pretty sure it doesnt really appeal to anyone, and even though they will be released i have a hard time beleiving that they will have mass appeal.

    And yeah we at halfbrick are doing great :). Fingers crossed that Raskulls kicks ass so that it paves the way for us to do more full console stuff.
  • achmedthesnake
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    achmedthesnake polycounter lvl 17
    ah bad luck guys, and others affected, hmm better start polishing that international passport if i want to get a job a this rate...
  • tanka
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    tanka polycounter lvl 12
    Halfbrick is putting out some really good stuff. I'm sure raskulls will kick some ass.

    It really seems like the downloadable market is the way to go. Maybe I should be focusing less on next-gen stuff in my portfolio, and doing alot more low poly work. There are very few companies left developing next-gen games in Australia anymore. I think 2k, Team Bondi and The Creative Assembly are the only ones left. Everyone else is developing for iphone, DS, wii, or XBLA/PSN.
  • Flava-Fly
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    Flava-Fly polycounter lvl 9
    Kotaku wrote: »
    Sometimes the Game Dev Industry sucks. Go get really drunk is my advice

    Bad luck guys, should come party with us Realtime boys for a bit! Seems when game devs go down pub trade goes up.
  • Szark
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    Szark polycounter lvl 12
    Muzz, we have at least two members who work at krome: monkeyboy_garth and Malus

    Good luck to all those who were affected.
  • gavku
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    gavku polycounter lvl 18
    Yeah pretty shitty news. Industry here has definitely taken a pounding. Even when games get made they have trouble finding publishers ie: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/07/30/please-publish-fractured-soul-on-ds/
  • Snacuum
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    Snacuum polycounter lvl 9
    ive heard rumour of putting metacritic score in contracts.

    Well that would just screw things to buggery. I mean, "lets just all have whether or not contracts are honored and people paid by whether or not public opinion is good."
  • Flava-Fly
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    Flava-Fly polycounter lvl 9
    I heard that about one of the FIFA games at EA Sports. Peter Moore demanded the next iteration must have an 85+ on metacritic or the team would be 'heavily restructured' I really hope that doesn't catch on!
  • PolyHertz
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    PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
    Muzz wrote: »
    ive heard rumour of putting metacritic score in contracts.

    That's just stupid, whether a game is good/bad and the public does/doesn't like it has very little to do with the the majority of people that work on a game. Even if it's only confined to management their are many things that can prevent them from achieving what they want to with a game as well.
  • ae.
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    ae. polycounter lvl 12
    Flava-Fly wrote: »
    I heard that about one of the FIFA games at EA Sports. Peter Moore demanded the next iteration must have an 85+ on metacritic or the team would be 'heavily restructured' I really hope that doesn't catch on!

    I thought this was common practice with publishers? I know a lot of people get bonuses from how well the game did not only at retail but with its metacritic score as well.

    Usually this only applies to the top dogs at the company.
  • Snacuum
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    Snacuum polycounter lvl 9
    ae. wrote: »
    I thought this was common practice with publishers? I know a lot of people get bonuses from how well the game did not only at retail but with its metacritic score as well.

    I'd certainly expect it for certain types of bonuses, but the idea of the publishing being based on an expected metacritic score and having not met those expectations causing the contract to become void and therefore affecting payments and turnover (regardless of how well it did financially) is atrocious.

    Not to mention that I've seen plenty of games/movies/books with low metacritic scores that also managed to be best sellers. Unfortunately that would be me admitting that this industry is about money, which is naturally true, but never feels good to say it.
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    It was just a rumour i heard, i dont know what it entailed or if it even happened at all.
  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 19
    EA talked about giving bonuses based on Metacritic scores before the economy tanked
  • naturon
    Sorry to hear about it guys, really quite a big blow for the Australian games industry. I know how tough it is getting a job so hopefully they land on their feet soon.
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
  • Emil Mujanovic
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    Emil Mujanovic polycounter lvl 18
    I heard about this earlier in the day from a few friends at Krome. Tough days for the Australian games industry.
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    I was sitting in the closing speech at gcap when i quickly checked twitter and saw this article.

    Real damn shame.

    But i honestly believe that this is the worst of it and it can only get better from here, i personally cant think of any more devs that are at risk. The team bondi guys and 2k seems happy as larry and it was inspiring meeting so many startups.
  • The Flying Monk
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    The Flying Monk polycounter lvl 18
    Sad to hear. i bumped into one of the Krome guys onj the way to the bar after GCAP. I think he'd only just found out today. I didn't see him after the bus ride but hopefully someone bought him a drink.
    The current report is that Krome Studios have let go of all remaining staff, including those in their base studio in Brisbane, and will be closing their doors on Monday. Some staff will be rehired as contractors to finish some remaining work.

    This isn't what the rumour on Tsumea was about, is it? Laying people off and then re-hiring people back as a contractor with shittier pay.
  • LEViATHAN
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    LEViATHAN polycounter lvl 11
    LOOM? LOOM?! LOOOOOOOOM!
  • monkeyboy_garth
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    monkeyboy_garth polycounter lvl 9
    LOOM? I thought he moved on from Krome a couple of years ago.

    Yeah I heard rumblings from friends yesterday...just concerns really. They heard there was a crisis meeting and that there would be the possibility of layoffs come monday. Then this happened. Not surprising, most guys didn't think that Krome would make it to Christmas. I was let go four weeks ago, and witnessed 4 rounds of redundancies in just over 12 months, things definitely weren't getting any better.

    The last few months I was there, we were pitching like mad, jumping from project to project like crazy monkeys, because 'oh, the publisher said they like this but they only have $xxxxxx in their budget' or 'they like these ideas, but they need motion control support' :D

    Yeah, I guess what really hurt was that Krome made some bad games and after a while publishers could see the stink lines. Krome used to pride itself on always delivering on time, and when the GFC hit and times got hard, delivering on time wasn't enough...the games had to be good too.

    I have to admit, this being my first job in the industry, it ended up being nothing like I imagined. On my first game, I was basically an optimisation monkey, stripping polys out of meshes so a 360 game would run on the wii. Did that for the last 7 or 8 months of Clonewars Republic Heroes. Funny thing is that there were some poor bastards in new zealand (sidhe) who then had to take the stuff we'd optimized and strip that down for psp! LOL

    On our last project I was a concept/3d enviro artist...creating content which was great. In June the publisher decided to switch production from Adelaide to the Brisbane office, which was the death nail for us. There were probably more people outside of our office working on the game anyway...we had guys in all three studios doing bits and pieces.

    Krome did have some great games...but they were either not picked up or the design changed (hello publishers) so dramatically that the game wasn't anywhere near as awesome as it could have been.

    I sure hope someone out there has video of the Yoda demo we made last year...high speed sidescrolling platformer with exploding droids! Exploding I tell you!
  • achmedthesnake
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    achmedthesnake polycounter lvl 17
    man this sucks for aussie artists
  • Steve Schulze
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    Steve Schulze polycounter lvl 18
    Muzz wrote: »
    I was sitting in the closing speech at gcap when i quickly checked twitter and saw this article.

    Real damn shame.

    But i honestly believe that this is the worst of it and it can only get better from here, i personally cant think of any more devs that are at risk. The team bondi guys and 2k seems happy as larry and it was inspiring meeting so many startups.

    I dunno mate. This super high Australian dollar is poison for our industry that has it's bread and butter line doing cheap licensed titles and the like for US publishers. If we're no longer cheap they'll go elsewhere. I predict a boom in New Zealand games development shortly, along with a lot of the work that the Aussies might have done going to studios in Asia. It'll be interesting to see how the local studios are affected, but I'd say it'll be a while before we see any genuine improvement.

    Anyway, best of luck to you folks who've lost your jobs. Probably wouldn't hurt to throw Sidhe a portfolio. I think we're still after an IPhone artist with some 2d and 3d skills.
  • Malus
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    Malus polycounter lvl 17
    Bah, what a shit house Friday. :(

    I personally dodged a bullet, it was my last day anyway as I had already resigned....

    However my heart goes out to all those awesome peeps I worked with who are sadly now looking for work.

    Too all the Leads out there in the community, if a Krome portfolio lands on your desk sometime in the near future, give it a good look.

    They were some of the best and most talented people I have know.

    -Dean
  • sampson
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    sampson polycounter lvl 9
    should i jump the sinking ship or is australia not sinking?
  • Raider
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    Raider polycounter lvl 9
    If you got good 2d / lowpoly skills you're in a better spot since there's so many indies / companies like halfbrick that are just making such good iphone / psp games etc which are been excepted really well by the community.

    After GCAP though it really seems like Aus is looking like it's going down those lines, so i need to start drawing again to get my skills back :|
  • tanka
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    tanka polycounter lvl 12
    The only companies left that aren't working on mobile/portable games (from memory) are The Creative Assembly, 2k, Team Bondi, Micro Forte and Bluetongue. 2k and Micro Forte don't seem to do too much in the area of art either.

    I can't imagine this changing anytime soon. So it looks like alot of us will be rethinking our portfolio's direction in order to better fall in line with our changing industry.. Or just jump ship to film. :P
  • Steve Schulze
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    Steve Schulze polycounter lvl 18
    That's the majority. We've also got EA who I think are doing something fairly major here. I think THQ Australia still currently exists. Microforte are gone, aren't they?

    Beyond that there are a few smaller startups who're still managing to ride out the storm.
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    2k and Micro Forte don't seem to do too much in the area of art either.

    Uh 2k in canbera is mostly an art house from talking to the 2k dudes at gcap. They did alot of work on bioshock 1 and 2 and are working xcom.

    Thq is still surviving, luckily they are a publishers house so it means that landing contracts isnt as big as a roblem as the other outsourcing houses.

    Also at halfbrick only half of our efforts are on mobile development, we do actually have a team working on larger console games.

    Auran still lives, but they make train simulators nowadays.
  • tanka
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    tanka polycounter lvl 12
    Muzz wrote: »
    Uh 2k in canbera is mostly an art house from talking to the 2k dudes at gcap. They did alot of work on bioshock 1 and 2 and are working xcom.

    That's interesting. I know a few people who've worked there, and I was under the impression that they mostly did level design, QA and engine programming.

    Now that I'm living in Canberra, I might have to pop in my resume. :P

    and yeah Jackablade, Micro Forte do still exist. I don't know to what extent though. lol


    btw muzz, were you one of the speakers at gcap? I would of really liked to have gone, but the gold coast is a bit of a trek. If it's in Melbourne next year, I'm there.
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    Nah im just an art monkey at halfbrick so im not in a position to give a talk :P.

    Also relevant:
    http://www.tsumea.com/australasia/australia/news/171010/pandemic-studios-brisbane-building-is-being-demolished
  • Malus
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    Malus polycounter lvl 17
    Muzz:

    Saw them pulling it down today while taking my dog to the park... yikes.
  • Raider
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    Raider polycounter lvl 9
    I didn't realise so many polycounters were at half brick, shoulda come here before I went there to organise some meets, so many people there was a mission to meet as many people as possible
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    No no, im the only one at halfbrick, the others are working freelance or are other companies.

    Though i met chai and flying monk there. That was cool :).
  • Muzzoid
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