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Sony London (PSVR, The Heist) has layoffs, including senior staff
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Spiral Insanity
Banned
Yes. They made a mistake.
blahatthat
Banned
Suddenly some people work in Wall Street.
Oh really now?
If you're buying a PlayStation product that needs continued support and it's not a numbered home console, you are making a mistake buying it within its first year. That's been obvious for years now.
I don't think consumer level VR should even be introduced this year. PSVR is midrange hardware at launch. We've already heard murmurs about Oculus and HTC designing new headsets. How poorly is PSVR going to age in terms of ergonomics and hardware capabilities? Is there going to be a PSVR Pro in a year or two?
Is anyone even going to care about PSVR two years from now? The software investment in VR seems really low ("Here's a one hour long Batman experience! Here's a single mission in this long released game! Here's a mini-game compilation!") to where if hardware sales aren't phenomenal, I can really easily see them just dropping it entirely.
Sword Of Doom
Member
If this is your reply then we're done here.
It's Shu, what else do you expect?
This isn't a standard policy - in fact it's noteworthy because it's no longer standard.
They're restructuring the studio and changing their development pipelines and focus.
It's awful for those involved but this isn't the game industry being an abusive husband to its workers, it's Sony restructuring internally because they're re-evaluating the focus of London Studio now that their latest projects are ready to ship.
ReddishGUI
Member
It will be salvaged by indie devs and pervy japanese games.
Sectorseven
Member
Does that mean PSVR is "done?" Does it not need any revisions? Or do they have to create a whole new project for a version 2.0 or whatever you want to call it?
What's your evidence for that?
Every article I have read says this is how the games industry works. They draft people in when a project ramps up and they cut back when it winds down. The exception is when a large in-house team is working on numerous projects simultaneously.
MiamiWesker
Member
I support slimysnake! You tell them! Bad Sony bad!
But seriously sony in general this gen has been really shitty with production.
But seriously sony in general this gen has been really shitty with production.
It's because it's getting way to expensive
bitbydeath
Member
This is normal in the games industry.
Evolution Studios though I'm still bitter about given how quickly they produced top notch games especially compared to many other studios who stay onboard and are no way near their league in value and turn around time.
Sony really fucked up with that decision.
Read Nirolaks post on the previous page.
DLC and season passes have changed this. You no longer hear of publishers churning through staff because there's enough content to keep them working beyond a projects launch. I'm sure it still happens to an extent but it's pretty clear that this has improved since a decade ago. I'm not pretending the industry is perfect but we should acknowledge progress when it's present.
Moreover this is clearly not one of these situations because it's senior guys who have been laid off. It's about changing the focus of the studio, not just culling the fat after a product has shipped.
[Agent]ZeroNine
Member
I'm really happy I did not pursue a career in the games industry.
How can companies be ok with losing talent that makes them literally millions?
Do they think talent like that comes easily or is abundant? Ugh. Avoid working
for a big company GameDevGAF.
How can companies be ok with losing talent that makes them literally millions?
Do they think talent like that comes easily or is abundant? Ugh. Avoid working
for a big company GameDevGAF.
JuanLatino
Member
[Agent]ZeroNine;216911458 said:
Do they??
BibiMaghoo
Member
[Agent]ZeroNine;216911458 said:
Because it costs them millions if they employee them with nothing to do. Instead they lay them off, and transfer and rehire where needed. People that opt for voluntary get a bigger payout for doing so, and could get rehired anyway.
Once again I'm impressed at the level of insider financial knowledge and business management of WWS and other developers on this board that people feel they can offer an insightful and informed opinions on the value or otherwise of this decision.
It's sad to hear about people losing their jobs, but there's zero context for discussion about anything else.
It's sad to hear about people losing their jobs, but there's zero context for discussion about anything else.
Eolz
Member
They've mostly done administrative/localization layouts. Nintendo is in a better shape than Sony and all about making their talent grow internally as much as possible. Iwata even said in an investors meeting back then that layoffs were counterproductive and that he preferred employees to feel safe and happy as much as possible.
It's a rarity to find a job for a very long time nowadays. Even if the layoffs are not as big as before in this industry, it still happens, and you still jump from job/company to job/company (for various reasons, like better salary, motivation, wanting to go in another genre or field, etc). Some countries and some sub markets are safer than others.
Chocolate & Vanilla
Fuck Strawberry
No, because that would require rational thought and would disrupt the desperate need to find something new to be negative about.
Harmondale
Member
I agree on this, this is the "Swedish way" of making business, the strong unions would never allow redundances like that. And I guess our economy is quite good due to that fact, despite the absurb amount of refugees we pay for
Banjo-Kazooie
Member
So ask yourself...why would they not want their senior staff working on their new project?
People jumped down your throat because, while we get what you're saying, you're not accurate in your assumption(s) of how money is used in a company. That's all.
Why would I know?
Wax Free Vanilla
Member
Sony are closing all of their UK dev studios down so prepare to get pissed. Media Molecule are next on the chopping block.
Sony's backing behind PSVR in my opinion almost directly correlates with the rise and rapid decline of VR in gaming recently.
It was all guns blazing when the headsets were on the way, now they've arrived and fallen relatively flat Sony have been pretty hush about the PSVR - every opportunity to showcase it they've basically reminded people it exists then quickly moved onto the next topic. I disappointingly expect it to go the historical way of pretty much all PS peripherals.
The press release does not quite say that. It says there is a "risk" of losing valuable workers.
"Regular reviews take place throughout SIE Worldwide Studios, ensuring that the resources that we have in such a competitive landscape deliver on our strategic objectives in the best way possible... London Studio have done a great job in leading the way in VR development, and as their first project nears completion it is time to plan for the next VR project... Unfortunately, there will be a number of compulsory redundancies within the London Studio. We accept that this will mean that we risk losing high calibre staff whose projects have reached completion and where possible, we will try to reallocate people to new projects currently being nurtured."
It reads more like a compliment at a difficult time.
Banjo-Kazooie
Member
There's zero context to discuss why they would be cutting/restructuring jobs at a studio that it supposed to be developing experiences for their brand new tech?
One would think they should be looking to hire people, or at least RETAIN senior staff who has experiences for that tech, not cut positions.
Where does it say the entire senior staff are getting the axe?
Say your studio has 4 teams, each with a management structure, plus the studio also has a marketing & Comms team, HR & finance. Depending on how you're being restructured you might be removing 2 teams and outsourcing (or insourcing to a central team within the same Corp for the admin functions) most of your admin functions. You do that and you've lost at least a whole layer of middle & upper admin management plus possibly a couple of directors/producers & senior creatives, depending on how the restructure works.
This is completely hypothetical of course, because none of us know any more than this press release.
TheGuardian
Member
That is absolutely not true.
Vita at least had a large amount of Japanese support moving forward, to compensate for Sony's nonsense. PSVR certainly won't.
Did the 2016 USA Men's basketball team need LeBron James to win?
Do you have information that provides better context for why this decision was made? Please feel free to share it if you can.
Communism?
They can be avoided if the studio has one or more projects that aren't at full production capacity in terms of staffing. Ideally one project ends its pre-conception phase and absorbs those ramping off another project that is wrapping or ramping people off.