News: Layoffs at SOE...

Calista · 2013-08-28, 02:47 PM

Sad day...

https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/.../#post-2097374

Thought I'd put it up here Hamma and echo what Linda said about showing respect but if you feel it shouldn't be here at all then by all means delete my post.

Smed via Reddit:

Originally Posted by j_smedley

Some specific comments.

Is this layoff going to impact PS2? - no. we have a large team still working on it. Yes some people have been let go from the team. They did terrific work and it's just simply a cost cutting issue.
Is Planetside 2 doing well - yes. These cuts were SOE wide. They were neccessary to get our costs in line with our revenues. Simple as that.
Was anyone fired because we have Player Studio know and we don't need them? - Absolutely not. this is silly.

There are many people with theories on why stuff like this happens. I can tell you this very simply - we make the best games we can and as a company I can say with a straight face that we do our absolute best to minimize the times when we need to do layoffs like this. They absolutely suck. However we do our absolute best to get people placed with good companies and we absolutely hire people back.
I don't much like the boilerplate statements companies make these days, ours included.. so I wanted to come on here and let you know we stand by PS2 and our other games and despite some people no longer being at the team we are working hard on the optimizations and the other features we have promised. We are making good progress and we intend to have a full status update next week
Smed

wasdie · 2013-08-28, 02:50 PM

Sounds like they are restructuring some staffing. They support a lot of projects and maybe they are condensing their support staff and choosing which project to keep funding. This isn't really unheard of for a bigger game company.

Calista · 2013-08-28, 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by wasdie

Sounds like they are restructuring some staffing. They support a lot of projects and maybe they are condensing their support staff and choosing which project to keep funding. This isn't really unheard of for a bigger game company.

Yeah and I am sure more details get revealed as time goes by but it does kinda suck.

Crator · 2013-08-28, 03:03 PM

Guess they might have been bloated from PS2 and EQ:N development and have gotten to a place that would allow them to run with a smaller team(s). I'm sure this is a common thing that typically happens. Surprised they even mentioned it to the public.

moosepoop · 2013-08-28, 03:06 PM

any ideas on how this can affect the game?

bpostal · 2013-08-28, 03:16 PM

Originally Posted by moosepoop

any ideas on how this can affect the game?

No word on that yet that I've seen. I imagine that SOE will label this impact as minimal, we can only hope that's the case.

Neurotoxin · 2013-08-28, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by moosepoop

any ideas on how this can affect the game?

Plenty of ways, but we probably won't see it. It sounds like the focus is on MMOs, and that the brunt of this is focused on non-MMO staff and developers (TCGs and such). I don't know if this was a release of contract workers or if permanent employees have been terminated, but the company would definitely be keeping all the core members of the PS2 team that are integral to continuing content progress and keeping the game running.

It definitely sucks though. I hope it is part of a restructuring that will prevent this from happening again, rather than short-term pruning for the sake of profits. "Eliminate positions and help reduce costs" is never a reason I believe any professional should be terminated from their position of employment, especially if they do it well and enjoy what they do.

Sunrock · 2013-08-28, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by moosepoop

any ideas on how this can affect the game?

I suspect it can only affect the game in a good way if any at all. It's not likely they are kicking the best coders they have...

ringring · 2013-08-28, 03:39 PM

Sad for anyone adversely affected but otherwise this kind of thing happens in all companies from time to time.

A company structure that is right at one time becomes wrong later on down the line and changes have to be made.

I'd like to think and I don't know how SOE handles things, the those who need to go are helped in whatever way is appropriate.

Phantomdestiny · 2013-08-28, 04:19 PM

we need to understand that most of the lay off are part of the DCUO team (from the my current understanding , don't judge this as truth) which after the ps4 release might not get more expansion which seems to make sense because it was already release on the ps3 meaning it has found it's maximum player base.

Also we need to considered that SOE still have devs teams for EQ1 , EQ2 and other games meaning that the PS2 team is the least likely to have a number of employees reduction due to the fact that it is the most profitable game right now until EQ:N comes out .

Hamma · 2013-08-28, 05:11 PM

This definitely has a place here was about to post it if it wasn't here already.

Good luck to all those who were affected today, I hope that many PS2 devs were not affected but I'm sure some were

Emperor Newt · 2013-08-28, 05:23 PM

Well that sucks... I hope that those people find a new job soon.
smedley tweeted that it wont affect PS2 though. I hope that this turns out to be the case.