SIE laying off 900 employees. Closes London Studio

As 2024 continues to go to shit for gaming employment, Sony finally tosses their hat in the ring. Record revenues don't mean a god damn thing when you need to raise those profit margins I guess. It's time to cross our fingers and hope there's still enough live people to want to make video games a few years from now.

London Studio gets axed as well, the studio behind some of Sony's VR and party projects. Explains Sony wanting to venture out with VR beyond their console to PC now. Their last released titles was 2019's Blood and Truth and Erica.

I hate this market right now. At this point, I feel like companies are doing layoffs because everyone else is.

Also, they closed a VR studio (again) and with their PSVR2 headset opening up to PC, it's a clear sign that they're struggling with VR support.

Which is crazy because this is practically the second time this studio has been closed under Sony. They used to be Team Soho, the people behind the first Getaway game.

How much longer can Phony hang on and who should replace them when they go?

Sony's stock value--on paper--lost $10 billion in value.

Poo cows. lol :P

Day one PC releases incoming.

Always a shame when hard working people lose their jobs instead of blood sucking CEO vampires.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/27/24084494/sony-playstation-layoffs-2024

from Tom Warren's article linked above

Sony’s layoffs will impact a variety of its PlayStation studios, including Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, and Firesprite. Sony’s layoffs are the latest in a wave that has been impacting the gaming and tech industries throughout 2024.

They sure don't, my company is global with record profits since 2020 and is doing the exact same shit now with layoffs, complaining profits are down and shareholders unhappy. It's corporate greed to the fullest extent.

@regnaston: Damn. I will have to check in on some folks

Absolutely brutal news.

The industry is hurting bad. :(

Here's one now!

@BenjaminBanklin : That sucks. I hope those affected find new jobs ASAP.

The layoff purge continues! The whole gaming industry is facing a massive purge and this is very devastating to hear😢

Does this mean 1st party games will be delayed?

Never liked that dude. How you visit a studio and get a warm farewell then just close it days later. He's retiring with a bunch of cash and they're unemployed. That's why you never get chummy with executives. I don't trust a single one of them.

Man the gaming industry really sucks. There are so many layoffs this year.

I think the massive expansion (at least, the one that was reported on) back in 2019-2021 is being recorrected. The games industry is extremely bloated right now due to Covid-19 playing a huge part, costs are ballooning and games aren't getting any better. Sunk costs. No doubt this is a product of the industry massively over-expanding based on the surge in revenue from Covid-19, which everyone should have known wouldn't stay around post-lockdown, alongside ballooning costs that aren't really coming through in the final products.

Yeah gaming and tech seem to be the sectors that get hit the hardest in the Post-Covid depression.

Guerrilla games also got hit, as someone who is playing Killzone right now and hyped for Horizon Forbidden West PC release this is just disheartening.

Not just the gaming industry either, every major tech industry and even a lot of U.S financial institutions have been laying off tons of people for the past 6 months or so. Lots of companies over hired and assumed massive growth during lockdowns. Turns out that growth wasnt forever.

Yeah, hopefully this is just the covid bubble bursting. It sucks but it is what it is.

Obviously, it sucks for every one getting the boot, nothing to celebrate. Capitalism is great in moderation but the way it becomes toxic to everyone but the shareholder starts to become detrimental as a whole.

Yup, other factors are that personnel costs are very high (as evident by Sony's latest numbers) and it has become alot harder to attract money.

I just got the number of layoffs for Insomniac. Still waiting to find out if they are part of the cut.

@Pedro: We can only hope.

I personally find as "hard-working" people those who are not paid a salary and have to work to make ends meet, and it is hard for me to sympathize with developers who are paid a salary (fixed amount per week to every month) and make enough that they do not live paycheck-to-paycheck like many hourly workers.

PlayStation Cutting 900 Jobs And Cancelling Games, Affecting Spider-Man, Last Of Us, And Horizon Developers

Insomniac, Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, Firesprite, and other teams are facing layoffs.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-cutting-900-jobs-in-video-game-industrys-latest-round-of-big-cuts/1100-6521383/

lol :P

It's a lot more than just recovering from the COVID economy.

A ton of businesses relied on cheap debt and, that's gone. Profit margins need to improve when revenue (and consumer spend) is being pinched.

Oh f***ing hell...

Half a billion dollar games cost a lot guys... We have to make sacrifices so we don't have to innovate gameplay....

The studio was working on a live service VR title. It was doomed from the beginning.

Dear employee,due to continually rehashing the same gaming worlds and remasters we have become over staffed and have to let you go,we will get in touch if we ever get creative again.

Yours Unfaithfully

Sony

Did the Mary Jane artist get let go?

That sucks.

Remember when Nintendo CEO Iwata took a paycut to prevent layoffs. He was good people.

This will no doubt further fuel day one PC releases for their games.

This is sort of how I've been feeling. We saw massive surges in "indoors" type hobbies--everyone got into video games, sourdough bread baking, and Dungeons and Dragons--during COVID, but now that it's safe to go outside they've abandoned this.

I'm not exactly sure why companies didn't plan for this; surely they couldn't have believed the surges during COVID were going to stick around...did they?

In either case, it's sad for all.

So we know they canceled Playstation Londons VR live service titles and a live service twisted metal. I'm guessing mist these layoffs have to do with their live service plans. I wouldn't be surprised if they buy arrowhead and make Helldivers their main live service franchise.

Capitalism/the free market choking itself to death. Probably a good thing in the long run.

It is the free market but it's not choking itself to death, unfortunate for those affected but it is basically a correction to pre-covid market conditions.

Yo who dis who dis??? I want to date her hard.

Not going to return to pre-covid conditions any time soon with companies understanding now how much they can squeeze consumers. Consumers have little money to spend on overproduced games that are not innovating or about fun. The executives don't understand video games at all. They look at numbers on spreadsheets. Video games used to be able to sell largely on their own, but now everything is expensive and what players want and what executives think they want have drifted so far apart.

Tough times for lay offs in 2024 could be more across the board.

Meanwhile Nintendo gave every employee a 10% raise.

Everyone is firing while Fromsoft is expanding. That is what you get when your studio has no drama, and releases nothing but bangers.

Reports that Twisted Metal also is cancelled

Seems like Sony has canceled a few Live Service games with this latest move. While I'm happy these games are gone, I hate that they're coming with layoffs. The people who thought it was a good idea to make these games are probably still employed...

Good on Nintendo. They'll always have my respect for how they treat their employees.

@mesome713: Yep, was about to ask... Has Nintendo had any mass layoffs recently? Not that I recall.

Anyway, very sad for the industry. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of this talent leaves the industry for good.

@SecretPolice said:

PlayStation Cutting 900 Jobs And Cancelling Games, Affecting Spider-Man, Last Of Us, And Horizon Developers

Insomniac, Guerrilla, Naughty Dog, Firesprite, and other teams are facing layoffs.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-cutting-900-jobs-in-video-game-industrys-latest-round-of-big-cuts/1100-6521383/

lol :P

I assume the cows are in meltdown mode. Remember when they lit up the forums for the Xbox layoffs? I assume they will do the same, RIGHT? RIGHT?

sucks for all affected..

when factoring in actual game cancelations, i wonder if we'll see the same level of "concern" from the usual crew..

“Reevaluating how we operate”

“Delivering and sustaining social, online experiences – allowing PlayStation gamers to explore our worlds in different ways – as well as launching games on additional devices such as PCandMobile, requires a different approach and different resources.”

Launching. VERY NICE.