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[Wax Free Vanilla]

Isnt London a very expensive location to develop games?

As I understand itt just getting a tiny apartment is crazy expensive.

Sony is closing all of their UK devs, the home of Playstation in Europe is heading to the Benelux. Why do you think Polyphony opened their new European studio there?


Sony UK game development is done for when the nails are knocked into the VR coffin in 18 months time.

 

[Brutalitops]

What a year Sony has had.

 

[Psychoward]

Eh, he isnt wrong. Sony has constantly treated several of their first party devs like absolutely shit this gen and seem to not have any confidence on them at all. They just give up and dont invest on growing them.

Paging Rushy. :/

 

[Shaneus]

I think pretty much all Sony studios have been restructure now.

Are there even any left?

Paging Rushy. :/

I doubt you'll hear anything from him on this, it seems they're still on okay terms.

 

[orochi91]

Are there even any left?

I think Polyphony Digital is the only one left untouched.

 

[Paz]

So Sony makes a billion dollars every year from PS+ subs alone and cant spend a few million keeping redundant staff for a few months until they start production on the next title.

What a great company to work for.

Quite possibly the worst 'analysis' of a games company having layoffs I've ever seen.



Hope those affected find new work quickly

 

[george_us]

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.

You just answered your own question. For every individual Sony lays off, there are probably 10 more begging to get in. Such is life in the gaming industry.

 

[Jon Carter]

PlayStation Vita's Return.

 

[Spiral Insanity]

I'm still miffed about the Studio Liverpool's closure. PSVR Wipeout would've been absolutely killer.

speaking of which – G-Police Trademark registered by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Oh my god.

 

[Peltz]

You just answered your own question. For every individual Sony lays off, there are probably 10 more begging to get in. Such is life in the gaming industry.

That's literally at the top of every field. I assume the same is true at Nintendo and they don't have layoffs even in their toughest years. And they aren't nearly as diversified as Sony.

Sony is launching a new platform with PSVR and should not be laying off people who designed one of the launch games BEFORE the launch even happens. It sends a lot of wrong signals to fans about the game and possibly even the platform. Plus, I feel for the devs as well. Launch games are probably some of the hardest games to get right.

No benefit of the doubt is given by Sony. They don't even give the appearance of being confident in their own products when they do shit like this. It's such a losing move all around and a poor way to do business.

 

[KratosEnergyDrink]

Sony: Hire & Fire

 

[Com_Raven]

Most studios don't operate like this anymore, which is part of why DLC exists (so the staff has something to do).

For example, you don't see Naughty Dog laying off their staff when Uncharted 4 ships.

Senior staff is also generally not let go, though it seems some opted into it. Temps aren't considered layoffs which is how you normally handle project scale-up and scale-down beyond the scope of DLC in modern times.

Exactly- if you have temporary staff, then they have limited contracts that just end when the game is done, so they are not lay-offs.

The only genre where the "overstaff to ship, then layoff" pattern seems to be more or less normal is MMOs. Otherwise you want to put your people onto the next project or DLC instead of letting them go.

 

[DerZuhälter]

Did someone mention the Brexit yet? Yeah, Brexit. Who knows how many of the contracts that just run their course now can't be extended because of the changing political landscape in Britain.

 

[Memorabilia]

Right. Sony isnt the only company doing it. but whenever kotaku runs these expose articles, we all air our frustration and call out publishers like EA and Activision who used to do this all the time.

Why is it that when i dared to criticize Sony everyone jumped down my throat.


It's a disgusting policy and every publisher needs to be criticized for it.



They are doing fine.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/28/sony...profit-as-its-turnaround-plan-takes-hold.html

You're heart is absolutely in the right place and, on balance, so is your general premise in terms of long-term economic stability. GAF tends to pile on when a beloved brand is perceived as being attacked.

Of course, through the haze of myopic responses you attracted there's at least a kernel of truth influencing Sony's top-down decision making in that they're not exactly in the best overall financial shape despite making profit strides within the VG division, relying on venerable insurance and optics, and paring down elsewhere. "Penny Pinching" is the operative, relevant phrase. True also to an extent is the idea that project based jobs with constant staff fluctuation is the norm, tho Nirolak is absolutely right this seems to have been ameliorated in recent years by DLC extending necessity for staff between large projects.

Here's the rub though: Long-term economic sustainability and top-down/shareholder profitability are always going to be at odds, because it's written from On High and chiseled into the Rock of Gibraltar. Or is it? Is the current state of economic reality as simple to explain as "because greed"? Well, from the perspective of someone with extensive and intimate experience on Wall Street the answer to that is more often than not, "yes". It's somewhat more complicated with a still conservative/insular Japanese company like Sony...but times even for them are a changin.

I like the way you think though, for reasons that go beyond the scope of this discussion except to say that generally speaking the laugh of it is most of the nay-sayers claiming "that's not how business works" don't actually have the first clue how it really works....

 

[DangerMouse]

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.

They have? I mean they may not be making a PSVR specific extra conference (probably due to its non-mainstream price), but did you miss E3 where they literally showed Resident Evil mainline f-ing 7 (hopefully Capcom and Sony will fix it to mitigate at least some of the issues for people not prone to sickness, since there were apparently some rookie mistakes in there, even for those who can play full FPS games in VR), and took time away from other things they could have shown by showing a brand new full scale game in Farpoint, and two massively mainstream IPs doing VR experiences, as well as roped in some Final Fantasy? That's being hush about it? It's true they should have some TV commercials for it but with it being sold out we'll see if they do when we get a little closer to October. I suppose that might be determined based on whether or not they actually have set aside some stock for stores at launch like they said. Many people also don't want them taking "too many" resources away from their main games as well so there's that too.

They've also had in-store demos for people try ever since E3 as well.

 

[uncleniccius]

Right. Sony isnt the only company doing it. but whenever kotaku runs these expose articles, we all air our frustration and call out publishers like EA and Activision who used to do this all the time.

Why is it that when i dared to criticize Sony everyone jumped down my throat.

It's a disgusting policy and every publisher needs to be criticized for it.



They are doing fine.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/28/sony...profit-as-its-turnaround-plan-takes-hold.html

I mean, in this case they're cutting jobs from a studio who have done very little in recent years.

The only closure I feel Sony made that was ridiculous was Liverpool, but even they had issues. SSM's layoffs sucked but that happens when a project is cancelled.

Their profits are quite frankly irrelevant as well. What matters is the performance of this studio which has had a pretty terrible output over the last five years. That isn't an attack on their staff, but I really don't understand this line. If a part of the business isn't doing great you change it.. This is a part of a successful business but it doesn't change the issues.

It is nothing to do with it being Sony by the way. The scaling down and removal of people at the end of projects is mismanagement of resources, but this is a different thing entirely. I'd be saying the same if it was Nintendo, Microsoft or EA.

Good luck to everyone impacted as it must be awful.

 

[Castef]

Good luck to those affected.

 

[NoPiece]

Did someone mention the Brexit yet? Yeah, Brexit. Who knows how many of the contracts that just run their course now can't be extended because of the changing political landscape in Britain.

Considering that the official notice of Brexit hasn't even been given yet, and when it does it will take at least two years to take effect, Brexit would have pretty much nothing to do with the layoffs. If anything it should have helped, because the pound is weak and labor has become cheaper in the UK.

 

[uncleniccius]

Considering that the official notice of Brexit hasn't even been given yet, and when it does it will take at least two years to take effect, Brexit would have pretty much nothing to do with the layoffs. If anything it should have helped, because the pound is weak and labor has become cheaper in the UK.

Not saying it is present in the reason in this case but uncertainty always causes problems regardless of the reality. It wouldn't be such a large issue in this industry, but I've heard stories of delays in hiring/cutting numbers because of what has happened/what is to come.

 

[vivekTO]

I hope evolution makes a monster of a game and that it does very well, sony has been doing better but seemingly getting rid of more devs..

This is so sad.

 

[zsidane]

lol omg could you guys quote me more?

Sony posted a $2.8 billion profit for their last fiscal year. Mostly thanks to their gaming division. I can understand cost cutting measures for their divisions losing money. I can understand layoffs for studios that dont sell enough games. What I dont understand is how you can run a business where you use people and discard them as soon as its finished BEFORE the game even ships and has a chance to make money.

Put yourself in their shoes. Those are real people who worked their asses off on the game and imagine how they feel.

This is not the first time Sony's shipped a game. They MUST know that there will be redundancies after a game is finished. They should have planned for it. Laying off folks to save a few million only to hire them back again a few months before launch is a disgusting practice. stop defending these shitty practices.

Looks like a lot of people quoting you and making fun of it either don't have a real job, no responsibilities or haven't heard of a video game company called Nintendo.

You guys should keep in mind that it's a fucking disaster for someone to lose his job when you have loans, family and monthly bills. And for those blaming it on the industry, you have a nice example in how Nintendo treat their employees.

 

[zsidane]

That's literally at the top of every field. I assume the same is true at Nintendo and they don't have layoffs even in their toughest years. And they aren't nearly as diversified as Sony.

Sony is launching a new platform with PSVR and should not be laying off people who designed one of the launch games BEFORE the launch even happens. It sends a lot of wrong signals to fans about the game and possibly even the platform. Plus, I feel for the devs as well. Launch games are probably some of the hardest games to get right.

No benefit of the doubt is given by Sony. They don't even give the appearance of being confident in their own products when they do shit like this. It's such a losing move all around and a poor way to do business.

I hope these kinds of analysis will be brought on the first page in the media once PSVR is released and we have the reviews: Consumers should know that Sony isn't showing confidence in their product...

 

[Planet]

People are spinning every story into "PS VR is doomed!" hot news...

VR can't really be demonstrated on a stage -> Sony isn't giving VR any attention!

178 titles announced, many ready day one, now everyone is waiting for the hardware release -> Already dying, no new games announced!

Sony restructured normal game studio -> Shit happens!

Sony restructured VR game studio -> They are abandoning the sinking ship!

 

[Spacecowboy77]

Ouch...

Hope everybody finds a new place, they have some good talent there.

 

[sirap]

Business as usual then. I'm seeing a lot of outsourcing studios pop up in Malaysia. It's the way to go if you want to save money.

 

[DryvBy]

If my job is to run studios then it's my job to find work for these people. maybe i should fire myself for not doing my job.

This is not a brand new concept. Sony has been shipping games since 1994. They know they are down periods and they need to plan AHEAD. laying off people actually means you have to pay them severance packages so technically you are paying them for sitting home and doing nothing.

Please, teach me more about budgets and management. You seem to be the wisest, Lego Batman.

 

[thepenguin55]

Eh, he isnt wrong. Sony has constantly treated several of their first party devs like absolutely shit this gen and seem to not have any confidence on them at all. They just give up and dont invest on growing them.

Maybe I'm totally wrong about this but it seems like Sony has had far more layoffs this gen than they did last gen. This is odd when you consider the bad position they were in for most of last gen and the seemingly great position they've been in so far this gen.

 

[Iztok Mravlja]

The problem with this sort of thing is brand recognition - people don't just see Sony (or whichever big publisher) as a homogenous unit - people are aware of the development studios and their history. I can't be the only one that takes that into consideration when buying a game.

This isn't too far removed from the way Konami treated their devs as if only the Konami brand mattered and the individual did not.

I understand the business aspect of it, however I disagree with the ideology that requires this behaviour to achieve success, but that's a completely different discussion.

 

[Some Nobody]

Maybe I'm totally wrong about this but it seems like Sony has had far more layoffs this gen than they did last gen. This is odd when you consider the bad position they were in for most of last gen and the seemingly great position they've been in so far this gen.

First guess is that all their mistakes are catching up to them.

As the theme of this thread currently is "it doesn't work that way", hilariously my first knee-jerk response to this news was "Sony can't even get any of their games out on time and they're laying people off???"

 

[driver116]

With all of the studios they're closing, I wouldn't be surprised if we see more Bloodborne type of deals with third parties in the future.

 

[amdb00mer]

Ya know, these decisions were made months ago. However Sony should have waited until TGS16 was done to perform all these layoffs. The layoffs will distract from any Sony gaming news out of TGS16. Sony is really having a bad PR month and it's of their own doing and nobody else. Hope Sony London employees can find work right away before the holidays get here.

 

[Agnostic Priest]

Sony is posting profits and recovering from their financial issues, but they still need to remain in "save mode". Cut every corner, save every penny. It's not ideal no, but the company has to ensure its own survival before anything else.

What if psvr flops? That's a huge financial hit that Sony can't make back. I'm not saying it will, but they need to prepare for that just in case it happens.

I own a small company that was going down with the price of oil. We had to restructure, lay off every employee (10 of them to be exact), and invest the remaing funds into potential new work. Nothing was producing, but we struck gold and found some really good work. We recovered all the money we lost and are back on our feet. We hired two contractors to get the work done. But we still have to be careful with money, because you never truly know what's around the corner. A company running lean can eventually offer more jobs than a company that went bankrupt.