The Great Developer Massacre of 2023-2024 (and onwards?)

[Dcubed]

35 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yup. I bet a few of them are seriously regretting their decision. The Ori developers have tweeted out today saying this is exactly why they didnt want snapped up.

As @killthenetmentioned, Ninja Theory must be very worried about what's happening around them. I can't see their next game doing big numbers.

Yup, totally agreed.  They'll likely be on the chopping block when Hellblade fails to sell 10 million consoles.

Speaking of which, I'm shocked that MS haven't shut down Rare.  They've basically been spinning their wheels ever since the end of the original Xbox and have only had one true bonefide hit (Kinect Sports) since their acquisition in 2003 (Ok, Sea of Thieves has done well in terms of userbase size; but it hasn't really made any money since it was the first first party game to be given away for free on Game Pass).

Everwild is also a complete failure, having already been rebooted at least once and having nothing to show for 7-8 years of development.

Same with The Initiative as well.  They've been working on Perfect Dark since 2018 and that has been such a disaster that MS had to hire Crystal Dynamics to take over development from them.

How can they justify shutting down studios that have a proven ability to ship product and (usually) quality product at that, when they are happy to keep throwing money into the Rare and Initiative black hole!?

Utter mismanagement at the highest level of Xbox.

Edited May 7 by Dcubed

[Hero-of-Time]

Harsh but true.

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, seems like your pretty much screwed no matter what you do.

[Hero-of-Time]

They aren't done yet...

 

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Quote

According to people who were in attendance, Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu said that both the company's American and European arms would be hit with layoffs, which will happen over the course of the next month.

The scale of the layoffs wasn't shared, but staff were told that people working in publishing, IT, and Square Enix's Collective indie games division would be predominantly affected.

Those affected will be informed this week. In the UK, employees will enter into a one-month consultancy period, as per local employment law, while US-based staff could leave their roles before June.

Following the internal meetings on Monday, many of Square Enix's main Slack channels were locked, VGC was told.

VGC has asked Square Enix for comment on this story

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/square-enix-confirms-us-eu-layoffs-as-part-of-restructuring/

 

I wonder when we can get through a week without any form of gaming redundancies/cuts being announced?

Edited May 13 by Hero-of-Time

[Hero-of-Time]

Another studio casualty.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Not developers but still relevant to the industry.

IGN going for a gaming news monopoly.

[Happenstance]

Well I don't think I've bought a single Humble Bundle since IGN bought them, hopefully this goes better.

[Dcubed]

 

Damn, this one really sucks

[Hero-of-Time]

Embracer with another closure.

[Hero-of-Time]

Ubisoft kick some more staff to the curb.

Quote

It has been announced that Ubisoft Toronto has been hit by a fresh wave of layoffs that have seen 33 employees lose their jobs. This comes as a result of Ubisoft trying to commit to delivering 'on its ambitious roadmap', a statement said. It's the same reasoning we've heard time and again over the last eighteen months, as almost 20,000 industry workers have been made redundant worldwide. It almost always comes down to a restructuring or a re-alignment with a roadmap – and more often than not, it's an 'ambitious' roadmap.