Home General Discussion

Gama article: "Game Developer Layoffs The Real Story"

polycounter lvl 10
Offline / Send Message
MagicSugar polycounter lvl 10
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3901/game_developer_layoffs_the_real_.php
Then reality set in. "You realize that EA owns a lot of the studios and they're still laying people off," he says. "Suddenly, your options are fewer. I even tried calling some of the contacts EA handed us when we left, but when I started getting turndowns, it hit me -- this is going to be more difficult than I thought."

Best of luck for affected folks.

Replies

  • ebagg
    Offline / Send Message
    ebagg polycounter lvl 17
    Maybe I missed it somewhere, but what I reallllly wanted the article to talk about was WHY publishers are doing this. The article cites the stats showing the games industry is booming in terms of profits, so why are publishers shutting down so many projects and laying people off!? They always give these vague reason's like MS saying "fiscally rooted decision that keeps Microsoft Game Studios on its growth plan." Does that make any sense? I can't help but think the publishers are doing this to appease their stockholders...hopefully I'm wrong but it'd be great if a publisher didn't have such vague statements about why they're cutting so many people loose!
  • AstroZombie
    Offline / Send Message
    AstroZombie polycounter lvl 18
    Ebagg:
    "These layoffs are not the result of the economic downturn that is affecting other industries," Mencher maintains. "Our industry is having record sales. What we're seeing is a combination of the not-so-unusual year-end layoffs that we see every year at this time when games have been shipped... plus a few companies that are having troubles, like EA, which has been struggling for some two and a half years."

    and
    On the opposite coast, T.J. Summers, a senior partner and co-owner of LA-based recruiter Digital Artist Management, suggests that the industry -- especially the console sector -- is going through a "reset" regarding how it is using its developer resources.
    "Distributed development and outsourcing are becoming more of a predominant part of the industry," he explains. "Publishers are taking a hard look at their portfolios, determining what they can do in-house, giving their core games to their best people, and handing off some of the others to outside resources. As a result, a lot of people are being let go."
  • Lee3dee
    Offline / Send Message
    Lee3dee polycounter lvl 18
    no job is ever secure. There's always a risk that you'll be unemployed. I didn't think I'd be looking for work a year later. Maybe I should of passed up working at Gearbox and gone with working at the serious games company in Raleigh, NC. But, the chance to work on Aliens was worth the move, plus I got to work with some great people :)

    I know a few LDs that have gotten jobs recently, so maybe the industry is slowly recovering.
  • Ghostscape
    Offline / Send Message
    Ghostscape polycounter lvl 13
    ebagg wrote: »
    Maybe I missed it somewhere, but what I reallllly wanted the article to talk about was WHY publishers are doing this. The article cites the stats showing the games industry is booming in terms of profits, so why are publishers shutting down so many projects and laying people off!? They always give these vague reason's like MS saying "fiscally rooted decision that keeps Microsoft Game Studios on its growth plan." Does that make any sense? I can't help but think the publishers are doing this to appease their stockholders...hopefully I'm wrong but it'd be great if a publisher didn't have such vague statements about why they're cutting so many people loose!

    They are doing it to appease their stockholders, because at the end of the day, those are the people who foot the bill and are looking to make their money back. They aren't employing people to be nice - economics doesn't work that way.

    "fiscally rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth plan" basically means "cutting expenses so our revenue looks like profit." Because trending like you're losing money is a surefire way to turn off investors, which means shutting off your funding, which means killing the company, which means you're laying everyone off, not just the team for the Wii version of GunTits 4.

    I've always assumed, perhaps falsely, that the reason so many layoffs take place at christmas is that it coincides nicely with the end of the fiscal year - projects are finished, so you won't hurt production/crunch morale, huge christmas profits are coming in, and then you have a Q4 riding on continued sales and a tremendous drop in overhead that makes it look like you did really well for 2 quarters instead of just Q3. I think it's bullshit number-fudging that hurts a lot of people, but I could be misunderstanding the motives behind december layoffs.
  • Richard Kain
    Offline / Send Message
    Richard Kain polycounter lvl 18
    Lee3dee wrote: »
    But, the chance to work on Aliens was worth the move

    Hell yes! I would have given my left nut to be involved with Aliens: Colonial Marines. Sometimes the work really is its own reward.

    As to the article, there was a lot of interesting things in it. I think one of the major issues it highlights is the destructive nature of the annual cycle in the games industry. As cynical as it is, layoffs at the end of the year really are a number-crunching game. That's not a theory, that is actually what's happening. Companies are terminating employees just to make their numbers look consistently solid for the year.

    And I personally feel that doing business like this is crap. Say what you will about the bottom line, preserving and nurturing talent and loyalty in the workforce is more important. Having an annual cycle that encourages breaking up teams just to bolster a fiscal report is unnacceptable. There are companies in this industry that dont' participate in such practices. And they are able to get by just fine.
  • sir-knight
    Offline / Send Message
    sir-knight polycounter lvl 10
    everyone is still in a panic mode, uneducated investors are dumping shares everywhere whether the company turns profit or not, and even seasoned investors are doing it. This has everything to do with the downturn and the industry doldrums that people say come and go.
  • Mark Dygert
    Aside from the normal seasonal layoffs, and bad economic panic, I think some places are being forced to evaluate how they operate. At first the only way to get the work done was to toss more people at the problem. As we roll on some people are probably being automated out of a job. "Do we really need a staff of 35 junior artists? Last time I checked they had formed their own WoW gold farming ring.
    Bob1: So you actually take the plans, from the customer, and walk them down, to the engineers? That's it? That's you're whole job?
    Tom Smykowski: Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?
    If this is you, have your Jump-to-Conclusions mat ready or garden hose if you prefer, its your call.
  • Junkie_XL
    Offline / Send Message
    Junkie_XL polycounter lvl 14
    sir-knight wrote: »
    everyone is still in a panic mode, uneducated investors are dumping shares everywhere whether the company turns profit or not, and even seasoned investors are doing it. This has everything to do with the downturn and the industry doldrums that people say come and go.

    I can't speak for other stock markets around the world, but getting yourself out of the US dollar that is about to get nailed with massive inflation because of all these bailouts is not an "uneducated" move at all...unless you are selling to sit on US cash...then yeah that is stupid. But once lending begins again, watch out...we are going to be right back to $4/gallon & beyond in no time.

    Even if you are in industries turning profits, you are actually losing if hyperinflation happens vs being in countries that are actually creditors...not debtors like us.

    US version of the Weimar Republic cometh...one day...
  • sir-knight
    Offline / Send Message
    sir-knight polycounter lvl 10
    very true, the US has 'printed' off almost 3 trillion dollars in the past 3 years for either the war or bailouts... this is going to have to effect things... it already has... cost of goods rose in the US, while here in canada, our cost of goods actually stayed the same or went down. Hell, we even enjoyed a few months where our dollar was higher value than the us dollar.
  • Richard Kain
    Offline / Send Message
    Richard Kain polycounter lvl 18
    Vig wrote: »
    If this is you, have your Jump-to-Conclusions mat ready or garden hose if you prefer, its your call.

    Too true. At the web company I work at, half the middle management got slashed recently. I'm actually a little dissapointed. They were my buffer against dealing directly with the clients. In a service industry, it's actually quite luxurious to have plenty of buffers between you and dealing directly with the client. And being a "people" person has nothing to do with it. Clients in general are not something a technically minded production designer wants to deal with.
  • Darth Tomi
    Offline / Send Message
    Darth Tomi polycounter lvl 12
  • jrs100000
    Offline / Send Message
    jrs100000 polycounter lvl 8
    Darth Tomi wrote: »
    Why? Greed.

    QFT! If only those greedy companies wernt interested in being profitable everything would be just peachy. We should just have the government make all our video games. I hear that Jack Thompson fellow is looking for a job, maybe we could put him in charge of the National Department of Patriotic Gaming Devices Agency (NDoPGDA).

    But on a serious note, it sounds like a lot of these jobs arnt coming back any time soon :(
  • Richard Kain
    Offline / Send Message
    Richard Kain polycounter lvl 18
    jrs100000 wrote: »
    But on a serious note, it sounds like a lot of these jobs aren't coming back any time soon :(

    And I think that's what is most frightening about the recent shakeup. If it was just the annual cycle of dropping excess workforce after a big release, than that's one thing. As unfortunate as that practice is, it's hardly anything new. No, what's new is that whole studios are being shuttered. That's what's new. And with a lot of existing companies folding up shop, that limits the potential job market for all those recently unemployed game designers, artists, and programmers.

    As someone else mentioned earlier, there are a considerable number of opportunities available, its just that most of them aren't in the traditional game design arena. There's a lot of jobs for mobile, casual, and web game developers. Those markets are booming at the moment, and could actually benefit from an influx of solid talent. But of course, most experienced game artists aren't going to take such efforts as seriously. It is a bit degrading to step back from normal-mapped multi-million sculpted meshes down to the sub-500 poly level with a single diffuse map.

    But hey, in these lean times, sometimes you got to take the work you can get.
  • almighty_gir
    Offline / Send Message
    almighty_gir ngon master
    He says that some of his team members are looking for jobs within Microsoft, others are looking outside, and a few are hoping to start their own studios. Unfortunately, he says, there's little time for job hunting given the fact that almost everyone is in crunch mode in order to meet the Halo Wars deadline.

    "We're working 50-55 hours a week," he says. "At least we still have these jobs until Halo Wars ships."

    fuck that. if someone told me my studio was being closed after a project, and then still expected me to put in those kind of hours to hit their deadlines, i'd tell them to fuck themselves. and probably try to incite the rest of the team to come out of crunch mode.

    companies need to realise they need the workforce just as much as the workforce needs jobs.
  • sir-knight
    Offline / Send Message
    sir-knight polycounter lvl 10
    It is a bit degrading to step back from normal-mapped multi-million sculpted meshes down to the sub-500 poly level with a single diffuse map.

    But hey, in these lean times, sometimes you got to take the work you can get.

    feh, if you're LUCKY enough to be working on a 3d game in mobile at all... 3 years in mobile and I've done 1 3d game and nothing is over 100 tris. You'll be working on board games and card games in pixel art, stuck in a neverending cycle of backfill and remakes... When I started one of the first games I worked on was euchre. 3 years later... I'm working on another euchre. It's a job for recent grads to get their feet wet. I want out so bad cause I'm not learning anything new anymore.

    Mobile has been great and all.. but in 5 years what will I have done and left as an artistic legacy? where will my portfolio be, what can I say I've done? "An impressive array of the same old card games. For about 3000 different cellphones."

    But like you said... I'm working, can't complain... too much ;)
  • Quokimbo
    fuck that. if someone told me my studio was being closed after a project, and then still expected me to put in those kind of hours to hit their deadlines, i'd tell them to fuck themselves. and probably try to incite the rest of the team to come out of crunch mode.

    companies need to realise they need the workforce just as much as the workforce needs jobs.

    QFT!!
  • Mark Dygert
    Maybe its time to...
    dam_workers.jpg
    Unionize.
    "Down with the blackleg, all workers unite" There is Power in a Union.

    The street dogs did a pretty good version of Billy Braggs song I think its 99 cents on i-tunes. Load it up, get fired up and then do absolutely nothing because most of have jobs and aren't being abused... For the few that are, I hope the rest of us apathetic bastards get around to helping you guys out, but don't count on us, we're a sorry bunch of douche bags who only care about their own low wages =P

    But imagine if...
  • almighty_gir
    Offline / Send Message
    almighty_gir ngon master
    lol, i love how he's misquoted the original "Workers of the world, unite".
  • Spark
    Offline / Send Message
    Spark polycounter lvl 18
    Almighty_gir, they were offered a severance if they stayed to the end of the project ( a very nice severance ) so that was the reason they stayed, and Halowars was able to be finished. Also, from what I heard, if they didn't want to work crunch, or if they caused any problems that they would be out, and forgo the severance. I think if you were in the same spot, you might have done the same so others didn't suffer, and that you could continue to provide for your family while looking to what you might do next. It wasn't the best case scenario for them, but alot better than some being pulled into the parking lot and given the axe.

    Spark
  • Mark Dygert
    lol, i love how he's misquoted the original "Workers of the world, unite".
    heh, I own them both... I choose to quote the original, it matched the coal workers pic I found.

    "Down with the blackleg, all workers unite" Billy Bragg - 1988
    "Let's fight the Right Wing, all workers unite" Street Dogs - 2006 (check out who they gave credit to for songwriting)

    If you want to get crazy technical...
    "Down with the traitors, up with the stars" George F. Root - 1862
  • dejawolf
    Offline / Send Message
    dejawolf polycounter lvl 18
    ^ and this is why you create workers unions.
    put the power into the hands of the employees instead of the employers.
    that way you'll be twisting the big honcho's legs in no time.
  • okkun
    Offline / Send Message
    okkun polycounter lvl 18
    dejawolf wrote: »
    ^ and this is why you create workers unions.
    put the power into the hands of the employees instead of the employers.
    that way you'll be twisting the big honcho's legs in no time.


    Yeah cause that worked out really well for the auto industry didn't it?
  • dejawolf
    Offline / Send Message
    dejawolf polycounter lvl 18
    sure did, right up until about now.
    and don't blame the fall of the car industry on the union. thats just retarded execs who doesn't know back from front what people are actually buying, spending billions on developing expensive gas guzzling SUVs.
  • greenj2
    Interesting article and discussion.

    Sooooo basically, economic crisis + resulting decreased investor interest = larger publishers/devs cull staff numbers to be more fiscally efficient? (Particularly ones with shareholders to answer to).

    I've not heard much about how the current economic climate is affecting smaller, privately owned studios.
  • Ryno
    Offline / Send Message
    Ryno polycounter lvl 18
    I tell you, that whole union thing sounds great! Just look at what it's done for the big three automakers here in the U.S.! (along with making some really bad cars for a few decades)
  • Richard Kain
    Offline / Send Message
    Richard Kain polycounter lvl 18
    WhiteEagle wrote: »
    I've not heard much about how the current economic climate is affecting smaller, privately owned studios.

    An excellent point. It would be very interesting to see how the smaller independent companies are faring in these turbulent times. We've heard a lot from the bigger companies, but the smaller companies have generally been keeping mum.

    Of course, part of that is just the fact that the smaller companies aren't always publicly traded. (which means that they don't have to release their financial information to a broad audience) Also, most of them don't have big PR departments, and don't often get hit up for interviews.

    I'd love to be a fly on the wall over at Valve right about now...
  • Lamont
    Offline / Send Message
    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    I'd love to be a fly on the wall over at Valve right about now...
    All you'd see is piles of money laying about... here is an artist rendition of the Valve offices:

    moneywomencelebration.jpg

    But Valve is very far away to what Bungie and Nintendo do with all the cash:

    bin-dive.jpg
  • doc rob
    Offline / Send Message
    doc rob polycounter lvl 19
    Maybe you guys should look at things like SAG instead of UAW. . . probably a bit closer to what we would need.

    The biggest thing standing in the way is that game developers are scattered to the four corners of the Earth. People can't pop around between gigs because of that, which kind of cripples the idea (as well as operational efficiency for the industry as a whole).
  • Mark Dygert
    WhiteEagle wrote: »
    I've not heard much about how the current economic climate is affecting smaller, privately owned studios.
    I work for a small privately owned studio, we're doing good, we grew in 08 and we'll probably grow in 09 just not as fast as years past. We tightened our belts and made sure or finances where in line with our goals. We're kind of in a bubble, we are our own publisher and our funding comes from our profits and a few investors. The investors aren't leaving and even if they did our profits could sustain us, provided we continue to make products that sell.

    The people who play our games become pretty loyal fans and because we crank out 2 games a year we keep them pretty happy. In 08 we expanded production to include a casual downloadable game that will be produced 2-3 times a year in between our main launches. I can't talk about future plans but I'm excited about whats coming and I like working here.

    There's another advantage the down turn has given us, and that's our price point and back catalog of games. People who might hold off on buying the 50- 60.00 game might instead pick up a 20. If they like what they play they have a bunch of other cheap games they can pick up in the same vein.

    SO for us, we're in a pretty good position to ride this thing out, but they've always run a tight ship.
  • Lamont
    Offline / Send Message
    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    Vig wrote: »
    In 08 we expanded production to include a casual downloadable game that will be produced 2-3 times a year in between our main launches. I can't talk about future plans but I'm excited about whats coming and I like working here.
    That's an awesome plan there. I've been a big fan of quality downloadable games, and I've picked up one of your companies titles when I was at Target last year (Since I was a fan of the books as a kid).

    I've always believed that a company can sustain itself if it puts out quality titles and doesn't stretch itself too thin. There is no reason to have operating costs constantly in the red and pray for a good return. When has running things in debt, and hope to gain a profit become a standard business model (across many industries)? The creative companies and individuals will be the ones who come out on top at the end of this.

    Back to the grind, gotta find a job :):poly124:
  • Kizza
    I work for a large independent in Australia. (World's second largest indie I think)
    We appear to be doing quite well. Still have a lot of projects going at the moment.
    We heard about Pandemic Australia shutting down just this week, terrible for them. They're just down the road from us so we have the chance to recruit some top quality staff out of this. Great for us, and good we can give some people jobs too.
  • Ruz
    Offline / Send Message
    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    I had an interview for a Company which seemed to have spent most of its budget on etched glass

    trendy windows.

    I hope they are suffering now

    I didn't get the job :)
  • o2car
    Offline / Send Message
    o2car polycounter lvl 16
    embrace change and it will be for the good.
  • TWilson
    Offline / Send Message
    TWilson polycounter lvl 18
    The other options that don't get a lot of mention... like making something for yourself. There are a lot of other opportunities out there that don't require huge publisher backing and 200 person teams. There are other platforms to develop for such as flash, iphone, google phone, blackberry, and facebook. To name a few. Embrace the opportunity to play with some 8bit style development. Make fun games fast.

    The industry is cutting the fat and outsourcing more. Most of the outsourcing is going to asia where the cost of living is low and there are a lot of bodies who are happy to make anything you give them. Some of the publishers are getting a bit smarter and sharing these assets between projects - double whammy.

    I know the cutting the fat term is not nice... but a lot of companies threw loads of people at next gen development rather than developing nice pipelines etc. Now we're forced to refine.

    imo.
  • Lamont
    Offline / Send Message
    Lamont polycounter lvl 15
    TWilson wrote: »
    The other options that don't get a lot of mention... like making something for yourself. There are a lot of other opportunities out there that don't require huge publisher backing and 200 person teams. There are other platforms to develop for such as flash, iphone, google phone, blackberry, and facebook. To name a few. Embrace the opportunity to play with some 8bit style development. Make fun games fast.
    Yeah, not a lot of artist are technically inclined for scripting and programming. There are tools out there that take away the "programmer" (GameMaker, Torque GameBuilder, Shiva) and you can make very good games with very little scripting.

    I have enough money and resources where if I don't find a job, I'll just duke it out and make something on my own. The past month and a half I've been enjoying doing the artwork I want to do when I want to do it.

    (and staying up till 7am and sleeping till 4pm...)
Sign In or Register to comment.