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  • Guy

    Par for the course for industries where people are dying to get in.

  • Kaeru

    This is pretty standard for the industry though isn’t it?  Ramp up during development, downsize after launch.  I feel like I’ve seen it a lot, anyway.

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    SOE: “The changes will better position SOE to deliver against its emphasis on developing games for a wider, more diverse audience and remaining a worldwide leader in online gaming.”
    Yeah, because somehow having less workers means you can get more work done.
    Firaxis: “Firaxis has realigned its development resources in order to streamline its development process, reduce costs and maximize the overall performance the studio”
    Since their workers are nothing more than giant monkey wrenches laying in the path of progress.
    Rockstar: “As is typical with game development, our team sizes have always fluctuated over the course of the development cycle.”
    Hey HR, these ones are spent, send up some more fodder for the cannons of entertainment.
    Little wonder I’m considering independent work considering job security is such an oxymoron these days.

  • http://idempot.net/blog/ Matthew Weigel

    Kaeru: yes it’s standard. That doesn’t mean it’s awesome, or pleasant for the folks who got laid off. It’s also not that smart – laying off the people that made a very successful game and then bringing in new talent to try to recreate that success for a sequel.
    Personally, I was surprised to note that 2K is emphasizing the layoffs at Firaxis won’t affect Sid Meier’s Civilization Network for Facebook – seems like the radio silence on that project lately has been deafening.

  • http://amburgey@rotman.utoronto.ca JuJutsu

    The most recent bureau of labor statistics figure on mass layoffs [more than 50 people in a 5 week period] is 1412 such events in May 2010. I know layoffs in gaming companies have a special resonance for Lum and some readers here but many non-gaming people have been dealing with this shit for quite a while now. It’s not awesome or pleasant for a gaming employee but I’m not convinced it’s any worse than it was for employees in <insert industry here>.

    I don’t want to be unsympathetic. It’s just that its a horror show in other sectors too and I’m getting burnout. The numbers here seem so small….unless you know the people getting the pink slips.

  • Kunikos

    This is also common in other software companies besides video games.  I have seen it at the company I currently work for.  They ramped up big time on a huge project, and as the releases came out they started whittling away at the staff.  You just have to hope that they are only cutting the people that are dead weight first rather than those that pull their weight.

  • http://serialganker.blogspot.com sid67

    This is one reason I’ve never pursued a job in the games industry (even when I had the chance at one firm I worked at that did a lot of things for EA and Microsoft Games).  It’s hard to get a raise when some young kid is willing to do your job for half your salary. It doesn’t mean they can do it as well as a veteran, but some companies actually intentionally operate with an inexperienced staff to cut costs.
    At the company for which I worked, it was common practice that the only person paid reasonably well was the project manager with all the subject matter expertise.  The rest of the staff mostly consisted of fairly inexperienced (but enthusiastic) employees that were all herded in the right direction by that overworked project manager and a handful of veterans.  Those few really experienced veterans are the heart-and-soul of the project and grossly underpaid.  And as a former overworked project manager, I can tell you that most of my big political fights were about trying to get those people want amounted to just a few more inconsequential table scraps in the grand scheme of things.

  • http://serialganker.blogspot.com sid67

    FYI: To be clear, I didn’t work for either of those companies.  Nor did the projects I work on have anything to do with them (since I didn’t work on games).  This was several years ago at an outsourcing firm.

  • http://www.whatwouldmattdo.com Matt

    These are all great reasons not to work in the game industry.

    Until developers and artists and sound guys and so on can all get together and take a stand (union), this will keep happening. Companies are going to continue to use people like widgets as long as they are allowed to do so.

  • Tox

    “Yeah, because somehow having less workers means you can get more work done.”
    Run a business, then you’ll understand. Or just do the math: assume an average of $66K per employee. 30 employees cost $1.98M. Remove that cost and you have $1.98M that can be allotted elsewhere, such as other projects. Also, “more work” isn’t necessarily “better work.” Some projects need to be cancelled. Layoffs don’t always mean bad management. They can, but not always.

  • http://stabbedup.blogspot.com/ Stabs

    Geldon: Yeah, because somehow having less workers means you can get more work done.
     
    Word. Like Geldon I find these PR messages that sacking people improves the capability of an organisation to get things done rather annoying. Unless these people were employed to sneakily delete people’s hard drives and hide the pens not having them will hurt the effectiveness of the companies, not improve it.
    Best wishes to everyone affected.

  • Informis

    The real evil is that companies prefer not to hire on contract.  If these were contract employees it wouldn’t be news at all.  Just someone’s contract running out, as they expected and planned for.

  • dartwick

    Actually laying people off in a bad economy often is smart. Im not encouraging it, but the reality of economy is pretty harsh right now.

  • Dave

    Seems like it would be a lot easier to ramp up during the big push by hiring contractors, and then let them go when the project is over. That way instead of these far-fetched press releases, the company can just say, “Project done, contract ended.” Plus contractors know what’s up ahead of time and can plan for it.

  • Fyzz

    This is the case for most industries. I worked in proposal and production phases on a number of projects.  Small staff to win the contract, big staff for development, production, and delivery, then ramping down once development is complete and in routine production.

    Staff got laid off or moved to new projects (desired result). it all depended on how much R&D money there was, or new projects to bid on.

    The safest group to belong to it seemed was graphics and marketing.  Those groups seemed to always surviv layoff time, unlike engineering, product assurance, or production folks.

  • Mokurai

    Be aware that the contract option no longer exists in California. The state is cracking down very hard on contract hires instead of employee hires, to the point where we had to go before a judge to prove that a contract sound guy we had (who had his own audio equipment at home, and came into the office only for large media transfer) was not an employee. If we have a contractor come work in the office, we have to charge them for the use of any of our company equipment.
    (All because they are trying to recover ‘lost’ revenues on payroll taxes.)
    I’m not defending the business plans of any of the above companies– just pointing out a new reality of which many commentators may not be aware.

  • Tox

    Mokurai: Be aware that the contract option no longer exists in California.

    Can you point me to an article about this? Sounds interesting. Thanks.

  • Brian

    Gamesdev just blows my mind.  When we ship millions of units in embedded systems / mobile, they give bonuses, raises, work hard to retain the people that made it a success, and try to hire up to expand into the next project.  Rewarding success with layoffs is pretty nuts…

  • Aufero

    Mokurai: Be aware that the contract option no longer exists in California. The state is cracking down very hard on contract hires instead of employee hires, to the point where we had to go before a judge to prove that a contract sound guy we had (who had his own audio equipment at home, and came into the office only for large media transfer) was not an employee. If we have a contractor come work in the office, we have to charge them for the use of any of our company equipment. (All because they are trying to recover ‘lost’ revenues on payroll taxes.)

    Odd, I’ve been a contractor for the last five years in California, and I haven’t had a problem. Maybe it’s only certain industries they’re cracking down on? (Not that anything to do with taxes in this state would surprise me. Even before the budget crunch, the California Franchise Tax Board was the most rapacious, autocratic bureaucracy I’d ever dealt with. If they could find a legal way to boil taxpayers in oil to extract more cash, they’d do it.)

  • Ashendarei

    oi, that’s still rough no matter the area you work in :(

    /agree about the contract assignments in part, it would help them plan for it at least (although if I worked in the gaming industry I’d always have one foot out the door and a 6+ month savings plan).

    It does suck though working as a contractor (in the IT field at least) because the benifits are almost always negligible or bad ($70+ a week for basic medical / dental / vision?) and the pay is rarely up to snuf for the work required and often the hours (poor) involved.

  • Tem

    Capitalism is going to kill us all.

  • Bri

    I can confirm that this is pretty common in most tech industries.  Big staff for project implementation, but once you’ve hit the deliverables, then it’s thank-you-for-your-contribution-and-we-wish-you-luck.  Nobody gets overly upset because it’s expected, and the smart people have already lined up the next project to move to.

    So, do game developers come into a project like this falsely expecting permanent employment?  Are they told that by the studio, or does the studio just infer it, or is it unrealistic expectation on the part of the individual developer?  Why is the games industry different from other tech industries?  Or is it?

  • Joe

    Matt: These are all great reasons not to work in the game industry.Until developers and artists and sound guys and so on can all get together and take a stand (union), this will keep happening. Companies are going to continue to use people like widgets as long as they are allowed to do so.

    No, it’s a reason to not work in the games industry — a union will just raise the industry’s barriers to entry further, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

    If game dev isn’t getting you where you want to go, stop doing game dev as a living and start doing it as a hobby in your off hours.

  • Jade Falcon

    Tox: “Yeah, because somehow having less workers means you can get more workdone.” Run a business, then you’ll understand. Or just do the math: assume an average of $66K per employee. 30 employees cost $1.98M. Remove that cost and you have $1.98M that can be allotted elsewhere, such as other projects. Also, “more work” isn’t necessarily “better work.” Some projects need to be cancelled. Layoffs don’t always mean bad management. They can, but not always.

     

    I’d agree with this argument except for the fact that Bioware (at least pre EA ownership days) produced hit after hit with few if any layoffs after ship and seemed quite profitable doing so.Can you increase profits by laying off people instead of moving them around with make work jobs? Sure, I’m quite sure you can but long term having a team that’s secure in it’s company and work environment has sure seemed to pay off for Bioware.

  • http://www.whatwouldmattdo.com Matt

    [quote]No, it’s a reason to not work in the games industry — a union will just raise the industry’s barriers to entry further, widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
    If game dev isn’t getting you where you want to go, stop doing game dev as a living and start doing it as a hobby in your off hours.[/quote]
    It’s this attitude that allows companies to do whatever they want to all involved in game development. Compre it to the movie industry… I don’t see that unions have killed that industry. Heck, I think all actors have a guild maybe :P .

    Don’t be short sighted. If you want to get into the game industry, you can. Whether there are unions involved or not. It will require a lot of hard work and lot of scutt work at the beginning…just like getting into any industry. That’s not the point there.

    The point is that if people continue to stay disorganized, be it a union or whatever else, they will continue to be at the mercy of huge companies that don’t care about people. If that isn’t obvious, you’re not paying attention.

  • http://www.whatwouldmattdo.com Matt

    Heh, that didn’t work.

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    Lets just start bandying around that companies which outsource or perform mass layoffs are automatically failures at human resource management.  It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, this is would just be a useful societal stigma to have.

  • http://www.whysohostile.com Cymbaline

    geldonyetich: Lets just start bandying around that companies which outsource or perform mass layoffs are automatically failures at human resource management.  It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, this is would just be a useful societal stigma to have.

    So… When a game company has 120 people on staff, produces a high budget game, and it turns out to be a bomb, and they’re way in the red, it would be better to not perform a mass layoff and run the company into the ground, thus having all 120 people lose their jobs, rather than perform a mass layoff and have, say, 50 out of the 120 lose their jobs?

    I understand the sentiment, but find your… solution highly misguided.

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    In Mother Russia, is no bad game.  Bad game play you.  Then you like, yes?

  • Scatch Maroo

    As a project manager for a still-busy-in-this-economy commercial mechanical contractor and lay-offs are common place after a large project, but only those that weren’t really worth keeping end up getting laid off and the strong talent gets kept (regardless of the cost).  The building trades is fraught with unmotivated, unskilled previously over-paid technicians. It’s hard to cut people in the midst of a high-pressure project, but it’s always better to gamble with an ‘unknown’ than a ‘known failure’. That said, not every company has the right metric for evaluating employees, but any company worth working for will have it.
    And even though we’re not union, top installers (no degrees, some no diplomas) still make $75K+/year, vehicle & fuel and benefits: the market bears it and the techs. deserve it. In this economy, unions are ghosts and so they have no effect whatsoever on compensation.

  • http://wowpanda.blogspot.com wowpanda

    Scatch Maroo:
    In this economy, unions are ghosts and so they have no effect whatsoever on compensation.

     
    Not nessessarily. Government unions doesn’t care much about tax payer money. I just heard something about DC has became the boomtown.

    @Matt
    That is a interesting point. I am strongly against unions because they create so much waste, but after your Hollywood example, I changed my mind. If the company is big, union might not be as bad as I thought, they will give smaller companies a chance, and the Hollywood union doesn’t seem to affect the movie busineses at all (unlike auto unions).

    Government unions are still bad, teachers unions is a great example.
    Union is also bad for small companies. My wife’s boss just get rid of a guy (the entire company has 3 employee), he is useless and draw a lot of money. It will be a nightmare if they can’t get rid of him, he might bankrupt the entire company.

  • dartwick

    I work in the building/construction industry too as a control electrician. I see the same thing Scratch mentioned.
     
    My guess is game industry also has people who let go between projects. Some people here seem to be under the impression that either all game dev are golden employees or maybe they think no one ever makes a mistake when hiring. Laying off the slackers after a project is good business and the best way to get rid of them. They are better off than they would be if they were fired and you have less ugly human resource issues on your hands.
     
    Now I am not saying that all the people in the links were bad employees. But the idea of pruning the the work force from time to time is a good one.

  • http://www.cesspit.net Abalieno

    You know what?
     
    This would really be the ideal moment to start a new studios from the ground up and change the world.
     
    Well, assuming one had the money and reputation to do it.

  • http://amburgey@rotman.utoronto.ca JuJutsu

    geldonyetich:
    Lets just start bandying around that companies which outsource or perform mass layoffs are automatically failures at human resource management.  It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, this is would just be a useful societal stigma to have.

     
    Right. You think Kotick is the only fuckwad executive out there that could give a damn about ‘societal stigma’?

  • Tox

    @Jade Falcon:
    I’d agree with this argument except for the fact that Bioware (at least pre EA ownership days) produced hit after hit with few if any layoffs after ship and seemed quite profitable doing so.
    “Few if any“? “Seemed quite profitable”? Sounds like you don’t know.
    BioWare merged with Pandemic in 2005, with a $300M investment from Elevation Partners that allowed them to hire more people. Two years later, EA purchased the two companies for $775M.
    Ironically, when BioWare and Pandemic formed their partnership, Pandemic’s founder said layoffs are a good thing because layoffs bring talent to their doorsteps. One year after EA’s acquisition, Pandemic was closed.
    With at least a $1.075B infusion of capital, BioWare hasn’t been in a position where layoffs were necessary. Layoffs, however, were on the table at one point. Both companies were in trouble, which is what led to the BioWare-Pandemic merger. They didn’t want to merge and they certainly didn’t want to join EA, but they had two options: sell or die. I am also speculating (based on news reports) that EA closed Pandemic because, for EA, BioWare was the better bet. Closing Pandemic provided more resources to BioWare.

  • Tox

    @Jade Falcon:
    I’d agree with this argument except for the fact that Bioware (at least pre EA ownership days) produced hit after hit with few if any layoffs after ship and seemed quite profitable doing so.

    “Few if any“? “Seemed quite profitable”? Sounds like you don’t know.

    BioWare merged with Pandemic in 2005, with a $300M investment from Elevation Partners that allowed them to hire more people. Two years later, EA purchased the two companies for $775M.
    Ironically, when BioWare and Pandemic formed their partnership, Pandemic’s founder said layoffs are a good thing because layoffs bring talent to their doorsteps. One year after EA’s acquisition, Pandemic was closed.

    With at least a $1.075B infusion of capital, BioWare hasn’t been in a position where layoffs were necessary. Layoffs, however, were on the table at one point. Both companies were in trouble, which is what led to the BioWare-Pandemic merger. They didn’t want to merge and they certainly didn’t want to join EA, but they had two options: sell or die. I am also speculating (based on news reports) that EA closed Pandemic because, for EA, BioWare was the better bet. Closing Pandemic provided more resources to BioWare.

  • Tox

    @Jade Falcon:
    I’d agree with this argument except for the fact that Bioware (at least pre EA ownership days) produced hit after hit with few if any layoffs after ship and seemed quite profitable doing so.

    “Few if any“? “Seemed quite profitable”? Sounds like you don’t know.

    BioWare merged with Pandemic in 2005, with a $300M investment from Elevation Partners that allowed them to hire more people. Two years later, EA purchased the two companies for $775M.

    Ironically, when BioWare and Pandemic formed their partnership, Pandemic’s founder said layoffs are a good thing because layoffs bring talent to their doorsteps. One year after EA’s acquisition, Pandemic was closed.

    With at least a $1.075B infusion of capital, BioWare hasn’t been in a position where layoffs were necessary. Layoffs, however, were on the table at one point. Both companies were in trouble, which is what led to the BioWare-Pandemic merger. They didn’t want to merge and they certainly didn’t want to join EA, but they had two options: sell or die. I am also speculating (based on news reports) that EA closed Pandemic because, for EA, BioWare was the better bet. Closing Pandemic provided more resources to BioWare.
     
    (Sorry about the multipost. This text editor doesn’t do new lines correctly.)

  • Rubylite

    The problem is that gamers lap up shit regardless of the ethics behind the brewing of the latest pot.

    Gamers know Kotick is an asshole of a human being, but they still buy from his company and there is practically zero tangible outrage.

    I think that if Steve Jobs gave that whole “keep the workers depressed” speech Apple’s customers would make the company feel their displeasure.

    The customer doesn’t give a shit that game companies treat employees like dirt; in fact they’d wait in line under golden showers just to get the chance to take a figurative hot carl from Kotick’s villainous ass.

    Some of these layoffs are really inevitable due to business contraints, but it’s clear to me at least that the industry takes advantage of its employees in the worst possible ways.

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    JuJutsu:   Right. You think Kotick is the only fuckwad executive out there that could give a damn about ‘societal stigma’?

    You’d be surprised. Lets face it, these flowery terms like, “realigned its development resources in order to streamline its development process, reduce costs and maximize the overall performance the studio” are geared specifically in the, “just because we’re laying people off, please don’t dump our stock” vein. It’s all fun and games until the stockholders start getting antsy around terms like, “incompetent utilization of (human) resources.”
    Of course, I doubt it’s really so simple as there being a stigma preventing mass layoffs. After all, with that hovering over your head, it becomes somewhat problematic to hire people to begin with. We’ve much work to do in adapting to the pressures of globalization, and this is just one lazy toss atop a pile of ideas.

  • Iconic

    One of the reasons I decided 6 years ago NOT to finish my CS degree was because I thought this was par for the course for most software development projects.  Work stupid over time to get the thing done in time and then get laid off so you can get hired some place else and do it all over again.
    Say what you will about the Bobby Kotick “turn everything into DLC and Sequels” mentality, at least it creates a reason to keep the same team employed over the long haul (unless you decide to fire them or withhold their bonuses because your squirrel overlords told you to).

  • http://tremayneslaw.wordpress.com/ Tremayne

    Jade Falcon:
     
    I’d agree with this argument except for the fact that Bioware (at least pre EA ownership days) produced hit after hit with few if any layoffs after ship and seemed quite profitable doing so.

     
    Do you know if Bioware traditionally outsourced their QA work? Frankly, I’d expect a studio to lay off QA people after shipping as you don’t need nearly so many at the start of a project as you do near the end. Unless you’ve got multiple projects on the go at once so they can shift straight from game X when it ships to game Y, it makes more sense to let them go and hire anew when you need them. Nothing special to the games industry – testers are the shoeless peasant seasonal labour of the IT industry (test MANAGERS are a different kettle of fish, of course).

    I’d be more concerned about the SoE layoffs – that one is a more structural ‘reduce headcount’ layoff, the sort where you do let people you need go in order to meet a budget figure.

  • MemoryChipped

    Business as usual, so in the end, you have to figure that the employees are either OK with it or should be in another industry. Yes, it sucks. But it won’t improve if everyone grouses but stays in the field.

  • Not Richard Garriott

    Good thing Obama promised to keep unemployment under 8% with his stimulus bill!
    —
    We are heading for a double-dip recession thanks to the Democrat’s policies.
     

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    Not Richard Garriott: We are heading for a double-dip recession thanks to the Democrat’s policies.

    Yeah, you don’t get to say that when unemployment got where it is today under 8 years of Republican watch.

  • http://amburgey@rotman.utoronto.ca JuJutsu

    Not Richard Garriott:
    Good thing Obama promised to keep unemployment under 8% with his stimulus bill!
    —
    We are heading for a double-dip recession thanks to the Democrat’s policies.
     

     

    Yup, you’ll never hear Republicans promising to hold down unemployment…unless maybe for CEOs.

  • http://twitter.com/D_0ne D-0ne

    It’s probably safe to post now.
    The company I work for made 4.5 billion dollars in cash profit last year.  That is 4.5 billion in the bank after all the bills, taxes, salaries, other companies we bought for hundreds of millions of dollars, after all the money going out was compared to money coming in.  Starting last year my company had about 30k employees and this year there are about 25k left.  Yes a company making money hand over fist, in deep, deep need of a great many thing only specialized people can provide reduced it’s work force by 1/6.
     
    But you all know what they say, do more with less.

  • Guy

    Accountants only see numbers, and execs only see accountants. Hence, layoffs, even when it might be a good idea to hold on to experienced talent.

  • Naladini

    This is where things come full circle. Accountants only see numbers, executives only see accountants, shareholders only see executives who provide short term quarterly profits.  When folks next look in the mirror, think about who shareholders are (even if you’re only in 401k mutual funds, its all part of the problem).

    The only way to really avoid it is a start up, with appropriate VC funding. Those investors are typically under better assumptions for the long term.  The trick is, when someone insists on an IPO or an outright sale to publicly held behemoth a few years later, everyone’s back at square one.

  • Iconic

    I don’t want to waste my time or other people’s time talking about what a douche bag you are, so please do us all a favor and try to keep the politics relevant to the discussion, if you must discuss politics at all. If I want to consume pre digested political thinking, I’ll listen to NPR or watch Fox News.

    Sincerely,

    Every one on the internet

    Not Richard Garriott: Good thing Obama promised to keep unemployment under 8% with his stimulus bill! — We are heading for a double-dip recession thanks to the Democrat’s policies.

     

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com geldonyetich

    Yes, plenty of that will be going on when 2012 rolls around.  Assuming the Earth doesn’t explode as so many pinheads seem to believe.
     
    Regarding aspects of game development hiring/firing policies… well, to a great extent, it’s an issue with shoehorning games into being a business instead of a craft.  We’ve all these people with talent, telling them to hit the pavement when a work is complete is a waste, as there’s always more work to be made.  I have to wonder if the idea of guilds isn’t a complete wash.

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