News PlayStation laying off 900 staff worldwide (8%) - Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerilla, Firesprite affected, Projects Cancelled, shutting London Studio

[unkindlynice]

AT FUCKING GUERRILLA?

Like, let's ignore that Naughty Dog and Insomniac are your two defining studios in your entire history.

Guerrilla is not a California studio.
Guerrilla is making two major games at once.

??????

The only thing I can think of for Guerrilla is that they're cancelling the Horizon Monster Hunter co-op spinoff.

These are not going to be project specific cuts. More likely these are cuts across the board with everyone having to make a saving. I don’t really understand why people are so focused on GAAS cuts at Sony - it’s not like Naughty Dog were producing that and their other games. That resource rolled back to the AAA side except likely some specific roles which were not suitable.

Sony do not make enough margin on their games. Too many of their games make their sales from bundles. Their cost base is too high and their stated primary competition just announced they would bring games to their platform.

This is a top level “cut 8%” regardless. Clearly not project specific.

 

[Heron]

Used to love Playstation but it really feels like they've gone to shit since the launch of the PS5.

Also, if your execs have issues with your profit margins, the quickest way to rectify that is to lay off almost everyone making games for your long-term risk, currently underperforming peripheral. So between these layoffs and the announcement of PC compatibility coming down the line, PSVR 2 is absolutely Vita'd at this point.

What a tremendous shame.

 

[Josh5890]

Knew it was coming, but this is pretty brutal. Hope everyone lands on their feet!

 

[Armoured_Bear]

Yes.

Maybe finally moving away from the Jim Ryan idiocy

 

[VintoWin]

Did Sony really NEED to do this or they were going to go under? Like at least let them release their damn game.

Idk maybe we should stop chasing better graphics and start focusing on the art and gameplay concepts only. Seems to work for Nintendo.

 

[Shoulder]

Fucking deplorable.



Look at the smile on his face knowing full well he’s about to upend every one of their lives. Look how happy he is.

Absolutely nauseating.

He says this decision was difficult to make, but I disagree. His cushy job is safe, plus all his administrators, and Board of Directors. They're not in any way, shape, or form at risk of losing their jobs, and probably never will.

I'd be curious on the dollars and cents side of things how much Sony will be saving with all these cuts.

 

[Luigi]

Another day, another 900 people losing their income.
This year has been ridiculous.

 

[Beanstar40]

Almost all of these layoffs are related to trying to make multiplayer titles to take on Fortnite, Monster Hunter, Call of Duty, etc.

I think it’s more related to them not being able to keep up a steady cadence of first party games. Due to covid, and the already lengthy development process, their content pipeline kind of fell apart. The same thing happened to ubisoft a year or two ago and they are just now starting to get back on track with releases

 

[Evil Lucario]

What a broken industry. You could be doing the best jobs ever and still get fucked, like Insomniac. Deplorable.

 

[lattjeful]

Nintendo's strategy of actually making money sure is looking smart right now...

FTFY

 

[Lugia667]

FTFY

except Playstation made a profit and is still doing this

 

[Razgriz]

except Playstation made a profit and is still doing this

Because PlayStation is nowadays largely ran by the American side of the company. American managed companies don't just want to make a profit (that's not even difficult - the majority of gaming companies make a profit), they want to make more profit. Growth for stockholders above all else is the name of the game in the eyes of American MBAs, if stocks go down it's the end of the world for the company, irrespective of actual money made.

For almost 3 decades that kind of infinite growth was possible but we're finally hitting the plateau of the gaming industry; anyone who is going to buy a PlayStation will already know what it is and if they want it. There are no new markets to tap into that are profitable for them anymore. Right now, Sony's execs probably realized they've hit the limit in terms of further ballooning their marketing budgets and inflating sales that way (seriously, compare and contrast marketing budget to actual development budget, its ludicrous), so they're thinking purely for the next quarter; layoffs are an easy and quick way to get a balance sheet injection on savings, so they're kicking their employees to the curb.

 

[Hailinel]

This is fucking miserable and I hope everyone affected land on their feet.

Jim Ryan has to be one of the most incompetent executives in industry history.

 

[lattjeful]

except Playstation made a profit and is still doing this

Oh I know. All jokes aside, that's the insane bit. It's not "We didn't make money,". It's "We didn't profit enough at your expense, so see ya."

Maybe operating your business via insane development budgets and profiting off of razor thin margins - and chasing infinite growth - isn't a smart strategy.

 

[goombaicebro]

damn it's playstationover

 

[aus89]

 

[Magic-Man]

Fucking seriously Sony? Especially with Insomniac and Naughty Dog. Yeah, let's just lay off a bunch of people from our two most important studios, one of which just released the most popular first party game on your system. Fuck off.

 

[Josh5890]

 

[Josh5890]

These are not going to be project specific cuts. More likely these are cuts across the board with everyone having to make a saving. I don’t really understand why people are so focused on GAAS cuts at Sony - it’s not like Naughty Dog were producing that and their other games. That resource rolled back to the AAA side except likely some specific roles which were not suitable.

Sony do not make enough margin on their games. Too many of their games make their sales from bundles. Their cost base is too high and their stated primary competition just announced they would bring games to their platform.

This is a top level “cut 8%” regardless. Clearly not project specific.

Sony just canceled the Twisted Metal game.

 

[robertman2]

fuckkkkkkkk

 

[Catsylvania]

Everybody.

Everybody predicted that.

I don’t want to make light of this because a lot of people are losing their jobs. This was, however, the most obvious outcome with ballooning AAA budgets, longer development times, razor thin profits margins, and a weird choice to go all-in on games as a service. Despite all the warnings throughout [checks notes] all time to not put all their eggs in the same basket, Sony decided:

As usual, the wrong people pay for it. F this noise forever.

 

[VintoWin]

Despite the delay, Nintendo is now in a VERY STRONG position to release Switch 2 as all 3 major platform holders are expected to fail to deliver in 2024.
Switch 2 in early 2025 will be like the thing everyone wants to get in this industry, methinks.

 

[Josh5890]

Guerilla's Horizon game is still alive.

 

[Kartina]

Guerilla's Horizon game is still alive.

I might be extremely cynical but this makes me think that they're not done with laying off people, it feels like they're still trying to salvage some games and spacing out cancellation and layoffs for the future, especially after the firesprite news.

 

[DDark]

How horrible for those 900 employees and the people in their lives. Just heartbreaking.

I wonder how many jobs could have been saved if they fired the managers and executives who made all these poor decisions instead of continuing to reward them with millions of dollars.

Also, when you have no major first-party games to release for the entire year on your flagship platform (at the peak of its life,) it looks even worse that you treat the people making the games you greenlit like they are the expendable ones. All around disgusting behavior.

 

[aus89]

I might be extremely cynical but this makes me think that they're not done with laying off people, it feels like they're still trying to salvage some games and spacing out cancellation and layoffs for the future, especially after the firesprite news.

of course, there's always another financial report to offset bad news as a result of executive decisions with layoffs for

 

[Jimmy Joe]

Absolutely ghoulish horse shit to frame this as a difficult decision for them when it's been brewing for so long and is being handed down by people who see labour as a strictly interchangeable set of numbers

God I'm going to black out if I fume about this for too long

 

[Josh5890]

I might be extremely cynical but this makes me think that they're not done with laying off people, it feels like they're still trying to salvage some games and spacing out cancellation and layoffs for the future, especially after the firesprite news.

We are only six months removed from Media Molecule, Naughty Dog, and Bungie letting people go. Not to mention they shut down PixelOpus last May. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we see more layoffs from Sony later in the year.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Why was Twisted Metal GaaS even greenlit.

Approve an idea with no shit and then fire everyone when it inevitably fails is pretty awful.

 

[Lord Azrael]

This is so fucked.

I can't find how big London Studio is. Anyone have a headcount?

Anyone with a single braincell could tell that Sony going all in on live service was a huge mistake. They're starting to hard pivot away from the initiative with almost nothing to show for it. What a huge fucking waste of time, money and talent. The incompetence is staggering. Execs should all be the ones to suffer the consequences, but instead Jim gets to chuckle his way into a comfy retirement, lauded as a hero because PS5 is somehow still selling well in spite of him, while the rank and file that probably never even wanted to do any of this bear the brunt of it. But what else is new.

 

[Mekanos]

A rotten industry top to bottom

 

[VintoWin]

Are we going to see any of these online service games in 2025?

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

If you aren't even safe at PlayStation... completely fucked industry.

 

[Lugia667]

honestly...I dunno if this would have ever been sucessfull to begin with though. Live service focus is clearly a dead end now

 

[Josh5890]

Why was Twisted Metal GaaS even greenlit.

Approve an idea with no shit and then fire everyone when it inevitably fails is pretty awful.

Actually, it never was fully greenlit.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Actually, it never was fully greenlit.

Probably not for full development, but there were seemingly a good many people doing pre production on this forever.

 

[Hailinel]

Why was Twisted Metal GaaS even greenlit.

Approve an idea with no shit and then fire everyone when it inevitably fails is pretty awful.

It was in development because PlayStation was all aboard the GAAS train and treating that business model like the future until that proved to be a bad decision.

 

[DDark]

I do not mean this to sound like some sort of console wars BS, but I’m happy that the largest part of my gaming heart belongs to Nintendo.

The Wii U sold 3.5 times less consoles total than the PS5 has to this point, but yet Iwata’s position was along the lines of “a fully staffed Nintendo has the best chance of rebounding” and famously took a pay cut himself while promising to return the company to “Nintendo-like profits.” He was right about the former, and he succeeded at the latter.

That’s what leadership and accountability looks like. This industry needs a lot more Iwatas and approximately zero Jim Ryans.

 

[Earthbounder]

It sucks I have been having to write this same spiel way too much recently, but here I go again:

Fuck those companies and this shitty economic system for only caring about protecting or increasing the money that goes into the pockets of shareholders and bigwigs. It's not like Sony is a sinking ship. They could have kept all those people employed until things got better, but no, you've got to ruin 900 lives so shareholders get more this year than they got last year. They can't make do with millions; they have got to earn millions plus one, otherwise they wil starve. The poor things.

"I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people." -

Iwata

This man was a treasure. It sucks so much we lost him too early.

 

[Hocot8]

I have no words. This shouldn't happen but it's only happening because of wall street. Infinite growth. If your profits are not going up then your company is failing, when that truly actually makes little sense.

I can't imagine the sense in cutting people from naughty dog or Insomniac, two of their best devs. Insomniac more so cause nobody on Sony's side of things pushes more AAA or big AA content out than them. Spiderman 2 exceeded expectations if I recall correctly. I guess this is Sony's way of saying thank you...

This is fucking miserable and I hope everyone affected land on their feet.

Jim Ryan has to be one of the most incompetent executives in industry history.

He's a ghoulish man.

This is so fucked.

I can't find how big London Studio is. Anyone have a headcount?

Anyone with a single braincell could tell that Sony going all in on live service was a huge mistake. They're starting to hard pivot away from the initiative with almost nothing to show for it. What a huge fucking waste of time, money and talent. The incompetence is staggering. Execs should all be the ones to suffer the consequences, but instead Jim gets to chuckle his way into a comfy retirement, lauded as a hero because PS5 is somehow still selling well in spite of him, while the rank and file that probably never even wanted to do any of this bear the brunt of it. But what else is new.

I think the whole point of going live service is to actually reach higher profits but that's a massive gamble especially when it seems they've hit a wall on profits mid gen.

 

[lattjeful]

This is so fucked.

I can't find how big London Studio is. Anyone have a headcount?

Anyone with a single braincell could tell that Sony going all in on live service was a huge mistake. They're starting to hard pivot away from the initiative with almost nothing to show for it. What a huge fucking waste of time, money and talent. The incompetence is staggering. Execs should all be the ones to suffer the consequences, but instead Jim gets to chuckle his way into a comfy retirement, lauded as a hero because PS5 is somehow still selling well in spite of him, while the rank and file that probably never even wanted to do any of this bear the brunt of it. But what else is new.

London Studio's LinkedIn says 200 employees at the most, 51 at the least. That's a lot of people. Huge chunk of the 900 people laid off.

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

I think the whole point of going live service is to actually reach higher profits but that's a massive gamble especially when it seems they've hit a wall on profits mid gen.

It’s not that they hit a wall but that they’ve pursued historically high revenue at the expense of historically low margins. GAAS was meant as a way to bolster said margins while giving them a reliable stream to offset. But the whole plan seems absolutely haphazard & ill-conceived.

 

[Josh5890]

This is so fucked.

I can't find how big London Studio is. Anyone have a headcount?

Anyone with a single braincell could tell that Sony going all in on live service was a huge mistake. They're starting to hard pivot away from the initiative with almost nothing to show for it. What a huge fucking waste of time, money and talent. The incompetence is staggering. Execs should all be the ones to suffer the consequences, but instead Jim gets to chuckle his way into a comfy retirement, lauded as a hero because PS5 is somehow still selling well in spite of him, while the rank and file that probably never even wanted to do any of this bear the brunt of it. But what else is new.

From Last September:

 

[Hailinel]

It’s not that they hit a wall but that they’ve pursued historically high revenue at the expense of historically low margins. GAAS was meant as a way to bolster said margins while giving them a reliable stream to offset. But the whole plan seems absolutely haphazard & ill-conceived.

Launching a GAAS-based game to immediate success is like trying to play roulette, and Sony put far too many chips on different numbers on the wheel.

Yeah, Helldivers is popular, but the same can't be said for every other GAAS title Sony devs have worked on. Naughty Dog spun their wheels for years on a TLOU GAAS game that they ended up scrapping. And it wouldn't surprise me if the ND layoffs announced today involved mostly if not entirely people that worked on it.

 

[Mbolibombo]

All these layoffs is just heartbreaking. Hope everyone will get on their feet, but looking on trends.. It's probably not happening in the video game industry. It really seems like one of the worst places to have a secure job right now.

So since summer..

Microsoft - 1900+ people
Embracer - 1400 people
Sony - 1000+ people
Epic Games - 830 people

The four horsemen of game development.

 

[Evilnemesis8]

Because PlayStation is nowadays largely ran by the American side of the company. American managed companies don't just want to make a profit (that's not even difficult - the majority of gaming companies make a profit), they want to make more profit. Growth for stockholders above all else is the name of the game in the eyes of American MBAs, if stocks go down it's the end of the world for the company, irrespective of actual money made.

Hiroki Totoki is the current Senior Vice President, Director, Executive Deputy President, Chief Financial Officer, and Representative Corporate Executive Officer of Sony

Sony Shakes Up Corporate Ladder by Promoting Exec Obsessed with Growth

On the up

www.pushsquare.com

“I am obsessed with growth,” the suit said during a financial call. “When growth stagnates, you fall into a negative spiral. We have defined our company’s purpose with Yoshida’s leadership. My job is to make that a concrete project.”

Looks like the 2nd highest Exec at Sony is exactly this type of individual.
------


As for the current cancelled GaaS projects at PlayStation(so far)

Insomniac - Spider-Man MP Project - Cancelled(Caveat that it was at the very initial stages when it was axed)
Lucid Games--->Firesprite Studios - Twisted Metal - Cancelled
Deviation Games - Most likely Cancelled(Mass Layoffs at the Studio)
Naughty Dog - The Last of Us Online - Cancelled
London Studios - GaaS game - Cancelled(Studio Closure)

 

[unkindlynice]

Despite the delay, Nintendo is now in a VERY STRONG position to release Switch 2 as all 3 major platform holders are expected to fail to deliver in 2024.
Switch 2 in early 2025 will be like the thing everyone wants to get in this industry, methinks.

Likely this will have fed into Nintendo’s strategy. Take more time and get their schedule lined up. They are under no pressure and increasingly Switch 1 is getting important games like the FIFA replacement.

 

[Josh5890]

PlayStation is more western focused now in terms of leadership, but they still answer to Sony's Japan headquarters at the end of the day. Tokito talked about needing to improve margins two weeks ago. The layoff decisions began in Japan.

 

[Hailinel]

Hiroki Totoki is the current Senior Vice President, Director, Executive Deputy President, Chief Financial Officer, and Representative Corporate Executive Officer of Sony

Sony Shakes Up Corporate Ladder by Promoting Exec Obsessed with Growth

On the up

www.pushsquare.com

Looks like the 2nd highest Exec at Sony is exactly this type of individual.
------


As for the current cancelled GaaS projects at PlayStation(so far)

Insomniac - Spider-Man MP Project - Cancelled(Caveat that it was at the very initial stages when it was axed)
Lucid Games--->Firesprite Studios - Twisted Metal - Cancelled
Deviation Games - Most likely Cancelled(Mass Layoffs at the Studio)
Naughty Dog - The Last of Us Online - Cancelled
London Studios - GaaS game - Cancelled(Studio Closure)

I think what they mean is that while Sony is a Japanese company, the PlayStation division of Sony is effectively American af this point. Jim Ryan reorganized the entire PS business, shuttered Japan Studio, put Hermen Hulst in charge of PlayStation Studios, and has generally made the entire division his fiefdom. It was under him, and Hulst, that all of Sony's first party studios began pursuing either AAA cinematic games that cost a zillion dollars, or GAAS liveservice titles that are always a gamble to begin with.

Their leadership is incompetent and their culture is toxic. And it all ties back to Ryan being put in charge.

 

[SuperFakerBros]

As someone who had to find a new job last year because my time was coming at an end at my last location, I feel for these folk. It’s always stressful to find work that’ll pay enough to keep a roof over your head while you’re stressed out about making sure your savings can last you long enough. I’m honestly sorry that they’re going through that right now and they land on their feet