Posted by: Drew Sikora at February 5, 2009 2:21:58 PM
This week's doom and gloom report. Let's tally up the unfortunate losses in manpower this past week across the industry. We'll start off with an addendum to Trent's report last week on Disney Interactive Studios cutting loose developers from Propaganda Games. It seems they also were forced to consolidate Salt Lake City studios Avalanche and Fall Line at the loss of "less than 20" jobs. Hopefully that's all the turmoil Disney sees to help ease the burden of a $45M loss saddled heavily on its gaming division. British developer Kuju (Battalion Wars) has also announced that they will be cutting back on workforce to better handle the upcoming market conditions. Yesterday Tiffany reported that THQ cut 100 jobs from its mobile division, and now they're planning another round of massive layoffs targeting 600 employees. It's unclear whether the 100 mobile cuts are included in this tally. Gamasutra has reported that many Vancouver studios are also beginning to struggle even though the region itself is growing. Over at Mythic Studios, Warhammer subscriptions are falling and studio GM Mark Jacobs has confirmed that downsizing will occur. Finally (finally!) an as-yet-unconfirmed rumor surrounds EA Canada, which could be losing up to 55 employees and dropping the Need For Speed PSP game.
Make it all stop!! Please! Marc Mencher, from GameRecruiter.com, has another feature up on GameDaily that suggests alternative solutions for companies that are considering the option of laying off employees to save costs. If you're not a studio GM or company head-honcho, you'll probably instead want to read his previous feature, 10 tips to prepare for a layoff. Even if you're secure in your position these tips can also help you if you willingly decide to leave.
The green grass on the other side. Let's switch to some lighter topics, like the fact that recently-deceased Ensemble Studios staffers will be moving on to create two new studios. New studios need new employees and there are still lots of noteworthy openings out there in the industry despite all the layoffs. Yes, nailing those positions is a lot harder, however. Also, thanks to Crytek, developer Free Radical (now known as Crytek UK) has been saved, along with its 40 jobs. Further acquisitions include Ubisoft snapping up sports developer Action Pants and Warner Bros Interactive taking in Snowblind Studios. Chin up, people!
Analysts predict the fall of game prices. I'm sure I'm not the only one wishing this would happen - as a consumer, anyways. Although games have been quicker to drop down to the likes of $49.99 and lower in some cases, many games for some platforms are still being released at the initial price of $59.99. However analyst Jesse Divnich from EEDAR reveals that the median price for Xbox 360 games due out this February has come down to $53. In addition to Jesse's analysis, GarageGames co-founder and indie entrepreneur Jeff Tunnell has also commented on falling game retail prices over at his blog Make it Big in Games.
It's really too bad I couldn't take a course on how to play StarCraft when I was in college. Not that I needed it - it just would have been cool as all hell to get credit for something like this.
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