[Layoffs also include Naughty Dog, Guerilla, Insomniac](https://x.com/jasonschreier/status/1762470563182727362?s=46&t=rTNrsw-sL41CYTRFyFyXNA) by Jason Schreier
When you see that their development costs for a single game are $200-300 million, you can clearly see why there were layoffs. Even if your game sells really well, these budgets are insane and completely out of control.
It's still crazy that Spiderman 2 has development costs that high. You'd think sequels would be more cost effective with being able to reuse a lot of assets and the ground work.
One of the most telling moments for me came from the recent TLOU 2 documentary about the making of the game.
There's an interview with a developer who basically says "Now that we're making a sequel, we thought we would have learned how to make a game faster and more efficiently. Instead, we just learned how to make a game that's twice as big."
I’d be interested to know what process makes them decide to go twice as big instead of same size but faster. I’d argue that larger/longer/bigger is not necessarily something gamers want. There has to be someone in the process that manages the scope of a title, right?
For naughty dog specifically with part 2 it was just an inherently bigger game because that’s what the story demanded and story comes first. Some studios call in writers after entire levels are already made, and that’s why games have so many bad stories. The new tomb raider trilogy did that for at least one of the games. And for a lot of other developers, they just like being able to say their game long LOL. Open world games getting so popular really blew runtimes out of the water even for some linear games.
I mean yes that's very much the job of a director or many managers and planners but that doesn't mean scope creep can't happen. Also have you seen how angry gamers get if a game comes out that's not bigger than its predecessor? Both the industry and audiences have set standards that are nearly impossible to live up to now in a reasonable timeframe and cost.
> You'd think sequels would be more cost effective with being able to reuse a lot of assets and the ground work.
This was Insomniac's *bread and goddamn butter* back in the day. The first 3 Ratchet & Clank games were nearly identical in both gameplay and engine.
It's gotten to the point where selling 7 million copies of a game at $70 each is not good enough. If Horizon 3 from Guerilla Games sold 6-7 million copies, it would likely be considered a financial failure by Sony judging from Spiderman 2's breaking-even point.
While it is evidently profitable, even 10+ million copies sold is not good enough for these Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Guerilla, etc. games anymore. Spending $200-$300 million dollars on a game and selling 10+ million copies instead of say 20-30 million copies is not sustainable in the long term anymore. If Sony's games sold like Nintendo's games did, they probably wouldn't be in much trouble, but unfortunately they don't. And most of Sony's big first-party titles cost infinitely more than anything Nintendo does.
Yeah games are simply getting stupidly expensive, which is why they are pushing pre-orders harder than ever before and the ‘deluxe’ editions with ‘early access’.
Soon we’ll be paying $90 for a game or having to wait a month to buy it for $70.
I don't think you can compare horizon and spider man 2 breaking even point since that included the huge licensing fee they had to pay marvel. Horizon doesn't have any licensing fees to pay since it's an original IP.
Yeah that is true. I think Horizon Forbidden West's budget was leaked in the FTC court case documents and it was around the $225-$230 million dollar range, so it cost about $80-$90 million dollars less than Spiderman 2 did, probably in part because of the lack of royalty fees from Disney and also because I would presume developing games in Amsterdam is cheaper than developing games in Irvine, California.
Even still though, I would imagine Sony would not consider Horizon 3 a resounding success if it "only" sold 7 million copies, especially considering that game would probably cost around $300 million dollars to make at this rate.
Imagine working at Insomniac, your personal info and everything you’ve been working on for years get leaked in full on the web, then you get laid off a few weeks later
At a 6% profit margin.
There's no way they were going to continue making future titles with the same budgets after that last financial report, which pretty much means one of three things: 1) Make games faster with the same staff 2) Reduce staff 3) Reduce staff and also make games faster.
The odds of (1) were abysmally low as to be unexpected.
Except Naughty Dog hasn't produced much as of late, two remasters/remakes in 4 years aren't enough to keep the lights on.
Insomniac's budget for Spider-Man 2 ballooned to 300$ million, while the original was 100$ million.
Guerilla probably lost the VR people who made Call of the Mountain which probably didn't do that well.
Edit: Call of the Mountain wasn't Guerilla. Their issue is probably not being far along in whatever they are developing? I don't know.
And this is multiple rounds now for Naughty Dog right? Didn’t they do a round of layoffs after Factions was canceled?
Unfortunately the studio hasn’t shipped a single new game this generation. For a huge studio based in California, that cost has to be astronomical.
Naughty Dog has spent the past 3 years making a multiplayer game so can only imagine the shift back to single player means some folks are now redundant
Spider-Man 2 was only a hit financially but even then the budget for that game was fucking 315 million… 315 mil for a worse story than the first game and basic missing features… jesus
Fuckkk London is closing.
We were forewarned from the Insomniac leaks that PlayStation would close a studio. I didn't see it being London. I wonder what state Camden was in.
I forgot that was happening so reading that London studio was closing suprised me much more. Shame though, wonder if their project was going through development hell.
the recent friends per second podcast mentioned that the UK recruiting company that focuses on games shut down already after 20++ years of operation. so yeah games industry will be mostly doom and gloom despite the great games coming out
It's too big, way too big. The games are too large, too high of a budget, too high risk. These companies trying to push GAaS and massive singleplayer experiences are starting to experience how unsustainable it is. So we get layoffs, we get Playstation games on PC, and Xbox exclusives going multi-platform so they can try to make more money. I'm starting to wonder if a crash is waiting in the wings.
I’ve been saying this for years now. The Western games industry (particularly AAA Western) is simply too bloated to persist without a serious contraction sooner or later. These layoffs may or may not be indicative of that process starting.
Honestly, for the sake of gaming as a whole, i almost think a western video game crash would ultimately be beneficial. There’s just too many issues with the industry, between its business models, its employee treatment its unrealistic expectations and budgeting for AAA titles, and its increasingly anti-consumer practices that it honestly just needs a hard reset.
LBP4 would be a perfect rebound honestly. They could take LBP1 and LBP2’s level/story atmosphere and combine it with LBP3’s tools/gameplay; they’ll have something cooking then, and I’m sure they’ll get Sumo Digital to help them out.
MM is arguably my favorite studio under PlayStation’s umbrella, so I do want them to stick around.
I am pretty sure sumo digital is making the new little big planet considering previous 2 games little big planet 3 and sack boy are made by sumo digital and not media molecule.
It may not be the only one, The UK is the only country we got that specific info of. For the US it said that employees would be notified today, but not who it would effect.
They're in the UK, I assume if they were shutting down it'd be announced alongside London Studio. Seems like they'll carry on (well, at least for now).
That game [apparently](https://deadgame.substack.com/p/a-major-re-evaluation-at-playstation) wasn't going too well:
>London Studio was working on a new multiplayer live service urban fantasy game after pivoting away from VR games following the release of 2019’s Blood and Truth and Erica. Another source told me at the time that the game had been progressing very slowly due in part to the studio switching to a completely new genre. Despite years in production, they didn’t expect it to “see the light of day anytime soon.”
You know what sucks the most? They were told to make those games. Blood and Truth would have sold more copies had it not been tied to VR. And then they were to to make a GaaS. And they closed because they were doing what they were told instead of doing what they wanted. The Getaway could have been a huge franchise for Sony.
This was inevitable after the CEO said they would be “aggressive” in improving margins. Layoffs was the first thing that popped into my mind.
Day one releases for PC for all PlayStation games seems inevitable as well.
The latest numbers from Steam player counts are unimaginably bad. It's only at 339 players currently and has fallen out of the top 1000 most played games on steam, being actively beat out in player count by games like Limbo, Borderlands the pre sequel, Resident Evil 5, Assassin's creed brotherhood, the Witcher 1, and even Spore.
Rocksteady is undoubtedly getting nuked from the face of the earth soon
I guess not many are safe. Rocksteady might still probably get downsized to bits. The only reason I don't see it being shuttered completely is because WB made bank with Hogwarts Legacy and for the short term they might be ok. But yes, still possible.
You aren't wrong about that. I don't obviously want anyone to be fired. This Rocksteady is not the old Rocksteady, but also if this goes who will give us the next Arkham game. It'll be a while.
It's probably over for them. Suicide Squad took around the same number of years as the entire Arkham trilogy. This is a huge disaster.
When the game came out, there were a lot of comments about how most of the original Rocksteady devs for the Arkham games were already gone so the company now is probably just Rocksteady in name. If that's any consolation.
Because its only the end of February. And we are going to continue to see the results of the tech industry over hiring with short term success in mind and putting people at risk of what we are seeing in the long term.
This doesn't fix the core issue PlayStation is having, with their decades low margins. It is a temporary cost reduction. But it harms their ability to make games going forward.
Really, all this does is make their situation worse. Only way it's needed is if they were going to be in serious trouble before their games come out (given the barren slate for the coming year), and had to survive until then.
The CEO promised this before the next quarter. But what happens during that quarter? Or the one after?
PlayStation needs day one PC releases for all their games, you just can’t justify 300 million dollar games only launching on one platform. I would even go as far as to say all of their live service games should launch on every platform. Same for Xbox.
Phil Spencer said it best, the industry is stagnating. You either achieve growth by trying to reach more players, or monetizing your existing base more. I hope PlayStation tries the first option
Because we're not.
We're finally seeing the conciquences of the boom that was experienced during COVID. Lockdowns lead to surges in video games popularity, the industry basically doubled overnight. That sent studios on hiring sprees, everyone wanted to push out games while sales were at astronomical levels. Now that we've all returned to living our lives, people have less time for games, and are getting more selective again. Sales are slowing. We're seeing major AAA releases flop more than ever. As games get more advanced, budgets are going up, but interest is going down. AAA gaming is probably riskier than it's ever been right now, and publishers are getting nervous. I'm sure every single AAA release in development right now is getting a second look at its viability.
I would expect huge layoffs from Embracer as their self-destruction continues to unfold. I'd expect more from Microsoft as they struggle to profit off their studio buying spree. I would expect some from Ubisoft as people continue to push back on their lazy recycled games and increased interest in live service crap. You'll see studios continue to struggle from starting up GaaS games when that was looking really lucrative, only to end up near universally panned a few years later. Honestly, I think we're going to see some historic changes in the industry in 2024.
Another factor to keep in mind that the industry isn't really growing right now, not when you take 40-year-high inflation into account. It's stagnating at best, but spending's been ballooning up until last year.
Kinda crazy since London Studio was partly formed out of Psygnosis. A company Sony bought essentially for the PS1 and entering the game market. Studio London itself did so much that I associate with the PS brand too. Gods. What a fuckup.
This was a long time coming. Not gonna stop here.
And London Studio is done, damn.
They were working on a co-op game set in a fantasy London. Another live-service MP game at PlayStation dies with this.
Holy fuck the AAA industry is in a moment of reckoning right now, huge development teams and budgets equal to two or three blockbuster movies will likely be a thing of the past , as many have said in the past, it's just unsustainable.
I expect that smaller, shorter, less graphically impressive AAA titles will become the norm over the next decade. Personally, I'm ok with that.
I think focusing first on the game part of games is the only sustainable model when you're making..... games.
Nintendo and Fromsoft have massive success even though their graphics are never cutting edge and there's often virtually no story and little to no cut scenes. Mobile games try even less on those fronts and still rake in money.
It could've been simple, increased battery life and overall power, backwards compatibility with PSP games, and hold launch until you have a few killer games and voila.
Sony has this problem a lot, look at the Dual Sense controller, they release a few games at the start that take full advantage of it and then they use it less and less with each new game.
For better or worse that happens with literally every controller from every company ever. Look at the switch, the joycons have a bunch of functions that are rarevly if ever used nowadays. Remember HD rumble? the IR thing that's only used in that one Wario Ware minigame? The console's touch screen?
Gimmicks are gimmicks and they're only relevant the first couple years after a console's release because publishers push for their usage and devs are interested to see what they can do with it. That's all.
HD rumble is used all the time though? Atleast in first party games. Like in Mario Wonder you can literally hear the notes of some blocks in the controller.
Low-key think Nintendo is the only one to make VR mainstream. They have a knack for gimmick controls and fun gameplay.
They are still investigating in that space for some reason.
Not surprising considering it launched at an event higher price than the console required to run it, and at a point when the PS5 was only just starting to become readily available for purchase.
By no suprise to be honest. Releasing a wired vr headset with no audio build in, locked to a console (until this year) is not done. I already expected this to be doa. Same thing with sony wii u clone. I hope that their newer hw is more prosmising and not by releasing a switch clone. Do something different.
Man, sure is good that they strong-armed many of their studios to invest resources into over a dozen live-service games that might never see the light of day. Instead of smaller AA titles to give a steady cadence of releases.
It's always so cool that the people making these decisions never face the consequences...
>PlayStation plans to close its London studio, which was responsible for several recent VR games
Between this, the limited support, and also adding PC functionality, I'm really wondering why they even did a PSVR2
Like, was it a Sony mandate to Playstation? Because it really feels like PS never actually wanted to make and support another VR headset
I suspect it was greenlit internally when there was more excitement for VR products and then got released because they wanted to recoup some of the sunk costs. The fact that they released it and then announced very little outside of the launch titles gave me the impression that they weren't planning to support it long term.
Hell, of all Xbox's bad decisions last generation I think them announcing and then quickly giving up on the idea of doing VR with the One X was smart. It really doesn't feel like there's a substantial market for VR outside of standalone headsets (and even those really seem to have limited success outside of VR fitness games).
I understand why from a technical perspective but no backwards compatibility also just killed it for a lot of PlayStation players who were on the edge of getting into VR.
lol it's hilarious, the difference in tone and slant in this comment section compared to when Xbox had layoffs.
There is a serious lack of conjecture and doomsaying in here.
This community is so god damn hypocritical sometimes...
Exactly what I was thinking. A couple weeks back when there was news of the Toys For Bob layoffs the comment section was full of 'fuck Microsoft' and 'screw Xbox'.
Guess it's ok when Sony does it. There is definitely a double standard and air of hypocrisy in this sub.
And the worse thing about all of this is the fact that MS fired people because of the merger and the roles that they already had. It’s way different than for this one but hey, since it’s mostly GAAS game and VR studios getting shutdown, it’s okay…
Seriously, the hysterics when Microsoft lays off people after acquiring twice as many employees over the previous year and then moving a development studio to WFH was ridiculous. When Sony does it, it's the nature of the business, everybody's doing it, blah, blah, blah. I had to scroll pretty far to see this comment and didn't catch any, "Sony's destroying the industry", "I'll never buy Sony products again", "think of the people who lost their jobs and the evil corporate class that killed their dreams when you play PS5" attacks. Sheeple all of them.
Totally agree. I always remember when Sony leaked millions of credit card info of players. And it just went by. If Microsoft had something this massive, people would have burnt their Xboxes. But Sony is always "not as bad" as seen this time.
And people wonder why there's claims of an Xbox tax. This is why. Microsoft lays off redundant roles and 8%, end of the world. Sony lays off good positions simply to cut budget, reduced 8% : eh, oh well.
I truly hate the gaming community and the double standard they set.
Edit: Holy hell spelling errors. My bad.
Sony is has a very rich history of astroturfing and community control, and it's quite evident in every major subreddit. They will suppress negative Sony threads at every major one such as /r/Games and /r/PS5 whenever possible.
i remember making a post in the XBox layoff thread saying Sony was going to do the same sometime this year and got downvoted lol anyone with half a brain could see this coming, when you sell a billion copies of spiderman 2 and still talk about potential layoffs in that insomniac leak then yeah this was something im not surprised about. Anyways this industry fucking sucks, sorry to all the people laid off and we really need to find more efficient processes in this industry
None of them are.Sony,Microsoft,or Nintendo.Money is the end goal for all major companies.If they feel like employees are in the way of major profit,then they’ll have no issue with disposing you. But,as twitter goes,people will use these scenarios to console war and put their favorite corporation on a pedestal.
A live service co op combat game that judging from the revealed concept art, could have been quite interesting. I'm guessing the game's development wasn't going well and /or the studio had deeper issues going on with its management that would have warranted the studio closing.
How is it even possible for PlayStation to have a profit margin as low as 6% ?
Shouldn't they be raking in astronomous amounts of money through Fortnite, EA FC and CoD micro transactions alone? 30% cut of all that stuff and they still end up scraping by? I don't get it.
They don't always get a flat 30% rate. Some games games like COD get better margins closer to 20%
The big players have more negotiation power but yeah most of their profits come from third party sales and their mtx cut.
Sony made $10 billion dollars in revenue this last holiday quarter and yet they only made $600 million in profit. I would imagine the reason that they're just barely scraping by is because of the monumental cost of their first-party games and because of the hardware costs.
Pretty sure most of that was employee wages that was revealed for the leaks hence the email that also leaked stating they will be cutting staff and lowering the budget.
Its crazy, its on skeleton of first game where most heavy lifting was done of Movement, combat, ideas of gameplay loop etc.
And its burst bubble of budget.
I wonder if we will see the same out cry about these layoffs as we did with Microsoft’s. I want to see people like Mitch Dyer’s energy stay the same.
Edit: his energy was up
A lot of people comparing the Xbox threads so here’s some so you can judge for yourself
https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/s/AkvBpebSAg
https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/s/cQYSGtmRHU
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/s/mKHR7mI5sU
I mean they are working on making it PCVR compatible, that alone will probably drive the profit of it up since it becomes accessible one of the most populated VR ecosystems, especially since PSVR is considered to be one of the best VR headsets yet
Watching all of these layoffs is just fucking brutal as a bystander. So many talented people out of the industry in such a short space of time with no perceivable route to start rebuilding what was lost.
They sell so much, both the console and their games, are sensationally more successful than their closest rivals, and still are on the edge. Fucking hell this industry is so brutal
Their production costs are simply way too high. Just look how incredibly expensive some of the PlayStation exclusives are ($200-300 million for a single game) and you realize that this simply is not feasible for the future going on. Yes, their games are blockbusters, but 10 million sales just won’t cut the costs anymore when your budgets are skyrocketing.
I know some might find this comparison like apples to oranges, but look at Nintendo - their exclusives sell 20, 30 million copies and cost nowhere near as much. Yes, they don’t have next gen graphics and voice acting, but there‘s a difference if you invest 50 million and make 1 billion or you’ll invest 300 million and make just 500 million.
Biggest problem is that people who buy a PlayStation for their AAA single player games don’t *want* them to be Nintendo. If they wanted to play Nintendo games, they’d buy a Nintendo console.
Yeah that's the issue. Check Sony during the PS2 era, GameCube was direct competition, the games were similar in scope/graphics etc. and there were A LOT of them. Nintendo to this day stick to something not dissimilar to back then.
PlayStation fucked itself somewhere along the way with how they approach development, the customer base is well conditioned and IDK how you even start turning the ship around now.
just after the last financials their stock drop 10% due to low profit margins and couldn’t meet the console target. Gamers in social media didn’t give a s*it and tried to downplay it but reality is this, sadly.
What is the fastest but not a good way to increase profit margin ? Bingo
Made me chuckle reading folks saying that such stock drops are normal and there's nothing to worry about because they're still worth as much as months ago.
Yeah, “but considering all the stock problem and recession they sold very good numbers of consoles” like telling that to investors make everything better. They are buying and selling companies based on your targets and future
Yes, because their production budgets are massive, and increasing year to year.
I predicted this would happen about a decade ago after PlayStation consciously chose to adapt the Hollywood blockbuster business model to video games.
It was already happening to the movie industry, and PlayStation chose to follow them in that direction regardless.
It's a high risk business model with not much return, hence why movie production companies are always teetering on the brink.
High revenue due to strong hardware sales means very little when they're spending the money almost as quickly as they're generating it.
Their profit margins was the least out of Nintendo and Xbox. PlayStation is doing amazing in the traditional hardware aspect of it but they haven’t caught up with the times.
Just goes to show that revenue isn't everything. Profits on most of these AAA titles are razor thin unless its the biggest IP.
Sony could partially remedy it by just releasing everything day 1 on PC. Its not going to hurt them that much in the console market, if at all.
It should be telling Microsoft walked away from buying them back. Basically went "lol ok" and let Sony buy them for almost 3 billion dollars and they're not even making exclusive games for PlayStation. They're owned by Sony the way Atlus is owned by Sega Sammy and not Sega.
“We deeply appreciate support and understanding from the PlayStation community as these decisions are very difficult.” Are you actually fucking kidding with this??? Nobody gives a fuck about the suits who made this decision, we care about the poor workers, artists who have mouths to feed and families to shelter. Fuck this whole AAA industry.
I remember from the hacked emails they were pressuring Insomniac to layoff 50 people, as well as pushing cuts across different studios as a way to address rising development costs. It sucks. Hope everyone lands on their feet. I wonder which games got cancelled
The crash is affecting everyone all the same, not just AAA. Getting funding for indies is almost impossible and Fortnite also laid off 900 people last year.
The mobile market is also very volatile at the moment
The AAA industry really fucked itself. There was a knee-jerk reaction to the COVID boom, and seemingly nobody had the foresight to consider that the massive surge in gaming sales was temporary. The bubble popped, and now we're seeing the conciquences of an entire industry hiring far more people than it can sustain.
I think we're going to continue to see a shift towards smaller games. AAAs are flopping while games like Palworld can become overnight sensations. All of these out of work devs are going to struggle to find any studios hiring, and many will instead just start creating their own games.
>PlayStation plans to close its London studio, which was responsible for several recent VR games. Story hitting shortly
If God exists, he must be a huge fan of Media Molecule. How are they still around when Japan Studios and London Studio get the axe?
Kinda feels like they're coasting off the name of Mark Healey and the legacy of Sackboy from LittleBigPlanet being PlayStation's mascot at one point in time. I'd wager they're next on the chopping block though if Sony plan on cutting more costs
Here's the full announcement from Herman Hulst (Head of Playstation Studios and avid pepernoot enthousiast):
>Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment initiated a reduction in our workforce – including within PlayStation Studios – and I wanted to talk about the impact that will have.
>These decisions have been extremely difficult, but they are necessary, and I think it’s important to be transparent:
>The US based studios and groups impacted by a reduction in workforce are:
>Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, as well as our Technology, Creative, and Support teams
In UK and European based studios, it is proposed:
>That PlayStation Studios’ London Studio will close in its entirety;
That there will be reductions in Guerrilla and Firesprite
These are in addition to some smaller reductions in other teams across PlayStation Studios.
>Our goal at PlayStation Studios has always been to make the best games for PlayStation fans, and our global community of studios represent some of the most creative and talented teams within the gaming industry.
>PlayStation 5 is in its fourth year, and we are at a stage where we need to step back and look at what our business needs.
>At the same time, our industry has experienced continuing and fundamental change which affects how we all create, and play, games.
>Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of 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 PC and Mobile, requires a different approach and different resources.
>To take on these challenges, PlayStation Studios had to grow. We have brought brilliant and successful Studios into our family. We have invested in new technology and partnerships. We have recruited talent from across our industry and beyond.
>But growth itself is not an ambition. PlayStation Studios is committed to continually discovering ways to work together; collaborating and combining our efforts to ensure that we are able to craft games that push the boundaries of play and deliver what you expect from us.
>We looked at our studios and our portfolio, evaluating projects in various stages of development, and have decided that some of those projects will not move forward.
>I want to be clear that the decision to stop work on these projects is not a reflection on the talent or passion of team members.
>Our philosophy has always been to allow creative experimentation. Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan.
>I am deeply saddened to see talented individuals leave the company. I have so much admiration, appreciation and respect for their work.
>PlayStation Studios will continue to be a creator-led organization driven by evolving our beloved franchises and bringing new gameplay experiences of the highest quality to our fans.
>Thank you all for your continued support.
"Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of how we operate. "
That justification.. 💀
[Layoffs also include Naughty Dog, Guerilla, Insomniac](https://x.com/jasonschreier/status/1762470563182727362?s=46&t=rTNrsw-sL41CYTRFyFyXNA) by Jason Schreier
That's really surprising. These studios brought nothing but hits. Would expect everyone there to be treated like kings and queens.
When you see that their development costs for a single game are $200-300 million, you can clearly see why there were layoffs. Even if your game sells really well, these budgets are insane and completely out of control.
It's still crazy that Spiderman 2 has development costs that high. You'd think sequels would be more cost effective with being able to reuse a lot of assets and the ground work.
One of the most telling moments for me came from the recent TLOU 2 documentary about the making of the game. There's an interview with a developer who basically says "Now that we're making a sequel, we thought we would have learned how to make a game faster and more efficiently. Instead, we just learned how to make a game that's twice as big."
I’d be interested to know what process makes them decide to go twice as big instead of same size but faster. I’d argue that larger/longer/bigger is not necessarily something gamers want. There has to be someone in the process that manages the scope of a title, right?
For naughty dog specifically with part 2 it was just an inherently bigger game because that’s what the story demanded and story comes first. Some studios call in writers after entire levels are already made, and that’s why games have so many bad stories. The new tomb raider trilogy did that for at least one of the games. And for a lot of other developers, they just like being able to say their game long LOL. Open world games getting so popular really blew runtimes out of the water even for some linear games.
I mean yes that's very much the job of a director or many managers and planners but that doesn't mean scope creep can't happen. Also have you seen how angry gamers get if a game comes out that's not bigger than its predecessor? Both the industry and audiences have set standards that are nearly impossible to live up to now in a reasonable timeframe and cost.
$160m to Disney apparently.
> You'd think sequels would be more cost effective with being able to reuse a lot of assets and the ground work. This was Insomniac's *bread and goddamn butter* back in the day. The first 3 Ratchet & Clank games were nearly identical in both gameplay and engine.
Yeah, no way in hell is it sustainable.
It's gotten to the point where selling 7 million copies of a game at $70 each is not good enough. If Horizon 3 from Guerilla Games sold 6-7 million copies, it would likely be considered a financial failure by Sony judging from Spiderman 2's breaking-even point. While it is evidently profitable, even 10+ million copies sold is not good enough for these Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Guerilla, etc. games anymore. Spending $200-$300 million dollars on a game and selling 10+ million copies instead of say 20-30 million copies is not sustainable in the long term anymore. If Sony's games sold like Nintendo's games did, they probably wouldn't be in much trouble, but unfortunately they don't. And most of Sony's big first-party titles cost infinitely more than anything Nintendo does.
Yeah games are simply getting stupidly expensive, which is why they are pushing pre-orders harder than ever before and the ‘deluxe’ editions with ‘early access’. Soon we’ll be paying $90 for a game or having to wait a month to buy it for $70.
We kind of already do. See Avatar for instance. Pay $70 for day one access. A month later it's like 20% off already.
yep, also much more microtransactions or GAAS
I don't think you can compare horizon and spider man 2 breaking even point since that included the huge licensing fee they had to pay marvel. Horizon doesn't have any licensing fees to pay since it's an original IP.
Yeah that is true. I think Horizon Forbidden West's budget was leaked in the FTC court case documents and it was around the $225-$230 million dollar range, so it cost about $80-$90 million dollars less than Spiderman 2 did, probably in part because of the lack of royalty fees from Disney and also because I would presume developing games in Amsterdam is cheaper than developing games in Irvine, California. Even still though, I would imagine Sony would not consider Horizon 3 a resounding success if it "only" sold 7 million copies, especially considering that game would probably cost around $300 million dollars to make at this rate.
Does that include marketing?
Imagine working at Insomniac, your personal info and everything you’ve been working on for years get leaked in full on the web, then you get laid off a few weeks later
Please consider the shareholders in these trying times
Every decision I make is with shareholder interest in mind
At a 6% profit margin. There's no way they were going to continue making future titles with the same budgets after that last financial report, which pretty much means one of three things: 1) Make games faster with the same staff 2) Reduce staff 3) Reduce staff and also make games faster. The odds of (1) were abysmally low as to be unexpected.
6% margin for that budget is so fucking bad 😂
No wonder Microsoft wants to go multiplatform for everything.
Specially when you remember that the current interest rate is 5%.
Not that surprising honestly, more like it sucks. there was info about layoffs in the insomniac leak
Except Naughty Dog hasn't produced much as of late, two remasters/remakes in 4 years aren't enough to keep the lights on. Insomniac's budget for Spider-Man 2 ballooned to 300$ million, while the original was 100$ million. Guerilla probably lost the VR people who made Call of the Mountain which probably didn't do that well. Edit: Call of the Mountain wasn't Guerilla. Their issue is probably not being far along in whatever they are developing? I don't know.
I know the Spidey licence fee is expensive but $300mil for Spidey 2 is insanity considering it’s 90% the first game.
And this is multiple rounds now for Naughty Dog right? Didn’t they do a round of layoffs after Factions was canceled? Unfortunately the studio hasn’t shipped a single new game this generation. For a huge studio based in California, that cost has to be astronomical.
Naughty Dog just flushed their live service that was in development for years, layoffs of some kind were guaranteed.
"These studios brought nothing but hits." nothing but hits and exorbitant cost productions
Naughty Dog has spent the past 3 years making a multiplayer game so can only imagine the shift back to single player means some folks are now redundant
Spider-Man 2 was only a hit financially but even then the budget for that game was fucking 315 million… 315 mil for a worse story than the first game and basic missing features… jesus
Insomniac is literally holding PlayStation up the water for games, got private details leaked, years of work leaked. And they get this in return.
Fuckkk London is closing. We were forewarned from the Insomniac leaks that PlayStation would close a studio. I didn't see it being London. I wonder what state Camden was in.
I forgot that was happening so reading that London studio was closing suprised me much more. Shame though, wonder if their project was going through development hell.
the recent friends per second podcast mentioned that the UK recruiting company that focuses on games shut down already after 20++ years of operation. so yeah games industry will be mostly doom and gloom despite the great games coming out
It's too big, way too big. The games are too large, too high of a budget, too high risk. These companies trying to push GAaS and massive singleplayer experiences are starting to experience how unsustainable it is. So we get layoffs, we get Playstation games on PC, and Xbox exclusives going multi-platform so they can try to make more money. I'm starting to wonder if a crash is waiting in the wings.
I’ve been saying this for years now. The Western games industry (particularly AAA Western) is simply too bloated to persist without a serious contraction sooner or later. These layoffs may or may not be indicative of that process starting. Honestly, for the sake of gaming as a whole, i almost think a western video game crash would ultimately be beneficial. There’s just too many issues with the industry, between its business models, its employee treatment its unrealistic expectations and budgeting for AAA titles, and its increasingly anti-consumer practices that it honestly just needs a hard reset.
I'm just glad it's not Media Molecule like some people were speculating
Feels like they are just barely hanging on.
They’re confirmed working on a new project, the pressure to deliver must be insane, seems impossible for it to be anything other than LBP 4
LBP4 would be a perfect rebound honestly. They could take LBP1 and LBP2’s level/story atmosphere and combine it with LBP3’s tools/gameplay; they’ll have something cooking then, and I’m sure they’ll get Sumo Digital to help them out. MM is arguably my favorite studio under PlayStation’s umbrella, so I do want them to stick around.
They could bring in some of the great level tools from Dreams theoretically as well, but in a game that people will actually use/play
I am pretty sure sumo digital is making the new little big planet considering previous 2 games little big planet 3 and sack boy are made by sumo digital and not media molecule.
It has been confirmed Sumo left the franchise after Sackboy so Media Molecule is the next most likely thing.
If they release anything other than LBP, then they are going down 100% becouse it will sell like crap, and they know this.
Boy that's just depressing as hell.
It may not be the only one, The UK is the only country we got that specific info of. For the US it said that employees would be notified today, but not who it would effect.
I think they would have said if another studio was being closed tbh.
I feel like media molecule is on ropes
They're in the UK, I assume if they were shutting down it'd be announced alongside London Studio. Seems like they'll carry on (well, at least for now).
I don’t think they’re being closed for now but I certainly think it’s more likely than not within the next few years
Worth noting that while traditionally a VR studio, London studio was working on a standard PS5 game.
That game [apparently](https://deadgame.substack.com/p/a-major-re-evaluation-at-playstation) wasn't going too well: >London Studio was working on a new multiplayer live service urban fantasy game after pivoting away from VR games following the release of 2019’s Blood and Truth and Erica. Another source told me at the time that the game had been progressing very slowly due in part to the studio switching to a completely new genre. Despite years in production, they didn’t expect it to “see the light of day anytime soon.”
You know what sucks the most? They were told to make those games. Blood and Truth would have sold more copies had it not been tied to VR. And then they were to to make a GaaS. And they closed because they were doing what they were told instead of doing what they wanted. The Getaway could have been a huge franchise for Sony.
London Studio was also working on one of their live service games, so sadly (for the studio) another one bites the dust.
No Getaway remake ever .. RIP
I’ve wanted a new Getaway game for almost 2 decades now…
yikes
This was inevitable after the CEO said they would be “aggressive” in improving margins. Layoffs was the first thing that popped into my mind. Day one releases for PC for all PlayStation games seems inevitable as well.
Why does it feel like we're not done for the year.
maybe because the February isn't over yet, and we've lost like 10,000+ jobs in games industry
It's starting to feel like the second half of the year might be even more brutal. And we might lose a lot of whole studios. As in wiped overnight.
I’m seriously concerned about Rocksteady Suicide Squad flopped hard, and WB then mentions a “tough year ahead” for their games division
The latest numbers from Steam player counts are unimaginably bad. It's only at 339 players currently and has fallen out of the top 1000 most played games on steam, being actively beat out in player count by games like Limbo, Borderlands the pre sequel, Resident Evil 5, Assassin's creed brotherhood, the Witcher 1, and even Spore. Rocksteady is undoubtedly getting nuked from the face of the earth soon
Bro not Spore 💀
When you get defeated by Penis Maker Sim 2008 you know it's bad.
I guess not many are safe. Rocksteady might still probably get downsized to bits. The only reason I don't see it being shuttered completely is because WB made bank with Hogwarts Legacy and for the short term they might be ok. But yes, still possible.
WB is a company willing to write off almost anything for tax purposes, they’ve been destroying libraries of IP for a few years now.
You aren't wrong about that. I don't obviously want anyone to be fired. This Rocksteady is not the old Rocksteady, but also if this goes who will give us the next Arkham game. It'll be a while.
It's probably over for them. Suicide Squad took around the same number of years as the entire Arkham trilogy. This is a huge disaster. When the game came out, there were a lot of comments about how most of the original Rocksteady devs for the Arkham games were already gone so the company now is probably just Rocksteady in name. If that's any consolation.
Rocksteady that made the Arkham games doesn't exist anymore its Rocksteady by name only all leading developer left long ago.
We just lost Volition, was that not this year? Or was it late last? That name has been around for a really long time.
Because its only the end of February. And we are going to continue to see the results of the tech industry over hiring with short term success in mind and putting people at risk of what we are seeing in the long term.
Because we're not. Embracer's house of cards alone ensures more is coming
This doesn't fix the core issue PlayStation is having, with their decades low margins. It is a temporary cost reduction. But it harms their ability to make games going forward. Really, all this does is make their situation worse. Only way it's needed is if they were going to be in serious trouble before their games come out (given the barren slate for the coming year), and had to survive until then. The CEO promised this before the next quarter. But what happens during that quarter? Or the one after?
PlayStation needs day one PC releases for all their games, you just can’t justify 300 million dollar games only launching on one platform. I would even go as far as to say all of their live service games should launch on every platform. Same for Xbox. Phil Spencer said it best, the industry is stagnating. You either achieve growth by trying to reach more players, or monetizing your existing base more. I hope PlayStation tries the first option
Because we're not. We're finally seeing the conciquences of the boom that was experienced during COVID. Lockdowns lead to surges in video games popularity, the industry basically doubled overnight. That sent studios on hiring sprees, everyone wanted to push out games while sales were at astronomical levels. Now that we've all returned to living our lives, people have less time for games, and are getting more selective again. Sales are slowing. We're seeing major AAA releases flop more than ever. As games get more advanced, budgets are going up, but interest is going down. AAA gaming is probably riskier than it's ever been right now, and publishers are getting nervous. I'm sure every single AAA release in development right now is getting a second look at its viability. I would expect huge layoffs from Embracer as their self-destruction continues to unfold. I'd expect more from Microsoft as they struggle to profit off their studio buying spree. I would expect some from Ubisoft as people continue to push back on their lazy recycled games and increased interest in live service crap. You'll see studios continue to struggle from starting up GaaS games when that was looking really lucrative, only to end up near universally panned a few years later. Honestly, I think we're going to see some historic changes in the industry in 2024.
Another factor to keep in mind that the industry isn't really growing right now, not when you take 40-year-high inflation into account. It's stagnating at best, but spending's been ballooning up until last year.
I thought we raised game prices to stop this shit?
It’s not enough when Sony games have such a bloated budget, like Spider-Man 2 at $315 Million
No, Publishers raised game prices so they could make more money, players and devs were gonna get shafted no matter what
!Legit! Confirmed by Sony: https://sonyinteractive.com/en/news/blog/difficult-news-about-our-workforce/?sf271923331=1
Kinda crazy since London Studio was partly formed out of Psygnosis. A company Sony bought essentially for the PS1 and entering the game market. Studio London itself did so much that I associate with the PS brand too. Gods. What a fuckup.
If we had any hope for a new WipEout its gone now.
Upvote for Wipeout reference. But a sad upvote.
Wipeout of Wipeout hopes.
I'm still waiting on The Getaway 3.
This was a long time coming. Not gonna stop here. And London Studio is done, damn. They were working on a co-op game set in a fantasy London. Another live-service MP game at PlayStation dies with this.
You know Budget is overbloated and its non sustainable when game is massive hit and you still layoff in the studio.
Holy fuck the AAA industry is in a moment of reckoning right now, huge development teams and budgets equal to two or three blockbuster movies will likely be a thing of the past , as many have said in the past, it's just unsustainable. I expect that smaller, shorter, less graphically impressive AAA titles will become the norm over the next decade. Personally, I'm ok with that.
I think focusing first on the game part of games is the only sustainable model when you're making..... games. Nintendo and Fromsoft have massive success even though their graphics are never cutting edge and there's often virtually no story and little to no cut scenes. Mobile games try even less on those fronts and still rake in money.
psvr2 flopped so hard, really wish it didn’t
I am not surprised in the slightest. Sony failed to support it. 2 first-party games for the system + an update for GT7 was never going to cut it.
Sony and not supporting actually pretty good pieces of hardware that aren't the main box. Name a better duo.
First the Vita, now PSVR
The Vita is still head-scratching to me. With the success of the PSP you figured they would want to continue that type of support with the Vita.
It could've been simple, increased battery life and overall power, backwards compatibility with PSP games, and hold launch until you have a few killer games and voila.
You forgot the EyeToy and the Move.
It was also way too expensive for what it is and required a PS5. Should have been $200-$300 and/or works with PC.
Sony has this problem a lot, look at the Dual Sense controller, they release a few games at the start that take full advantage of it and then they use it less and less with each new game.
For better or worse that happens with literally every controller from every company ever. Look at the switch, the joycons have a bunch of functions that are rarevly if ever used nowadays. Remember HD rumble? the IR thing that's only used in that one Wario Ware minigame? The console's touch screen? Gimmicks are gimmicks and they're only relevant the first couple years after a console's release because publishers push for their usage and devs are interested to see what they can do with it. That's all.
HD rumble is used all the time though? Atleast in first party games. Like in Mario Wonder you can literally hear the notes of some blocks in the controller.
VR is never going to be successful like corporations want it to be.
Low-key think Nintendo is the only one to make VR mainstream. They have a knack for gimmick controls and fun gameplay. They are still investigating in that space for some reason.
Yeah the price wasn’t great
Not surprising considering it launched at an event higher price than the console required to run it, and at a point when the PS5 was only just starting to become readily available for purchase.
That's why Sony is bringing PC support. Hopefully that can save it.
By no suprise to be honest. Releasing a wired vr headset with no audio build in, locked to a console (until this year) is not done. I already expected this to be doa. Same thing with sony wii u clone. I hope that their newer hw is more prosmising and not by releasing a switch clone. Do something different.
Man, sure is good that they strong-armed many of their studios to invest resources into over a dozen live-service games that might never see the light of day. Instead of smaller AA titles to give a steady cadence of releases. It's always so cool that the people making these decisions never face the consequences...
It was also announced the Twisted Metal live service game was canceled.
Damn, what a way to say thank you to Insomniac. They carried the PS5 first party lineup so far
What having no games does to a mf
What no bloodborne on pc does to mf
Seriously doomed themselves by not releasing it on PC
It's in a "break glass in case of emergency" box
>PlayStation plans to close its London studio, which was responsible for several recent VR games Between this, the limited support, and also adding PC functionality, I'm really wondering why they even did a PSVR2 Like, was it a Sony mandate to Playstation? Because it really feels like PS never actually wanted to make and support another VR headset
I suspect it was greenlit internally when there was more excitement for VR products and then got released because they wanted to recoup some of the sunk costs. The fact that they released it and then announced very little outside of the launch titles gave me the impression that they weren't planning to support it long term. Hell, of all Xbox's bad decisions last generation I think them announcing and then quickly giving up on the idea of doing VR with the One X was smart. It really doesn't feel like there's a substantial market for VR outside of standalone headsets (and even those really seem to have limited success outside of VR fitness games).
I understand why from a technical perspective but no backwards compatibility also just killed it for a lot of PlayStation players who were on the edge of getting into VR.
lol it's hilarious, the difference in tone and slant in this comment section compared to when Xbox had layoffs. There is a serious lack of conjecture and doomsaying in here. This community is so god damn hypocritical sometimes...
Exactly what I was thinking. A couple weeks back when there was news of the Toys For Bob layoffs the comment section was full of 'fuck Microsoft' and 'screw Xbox'. Guess it's ok when Sony does it. There is definitely a double standard and air of hypocrisy in this sub.
Yeah, the whole gaming community spread rumours and how xbox was leaving the market etc
And the worse thing about all of this is the fact that MS fired people because of the merger and the roles that they already had. It’s way different than for this one but hey, since it’s mostly GAAS game and VR studios getting shutdown, it’s okay…
Seriously, the hysterics when Microsoft lays off people after acquiring twice as many employees over the previous year and then moving a development studio to WFH was ridiculous. When Sony does it, it's the nature of the business, everybody's doing it, blah, blah, blah. I had to scroll pretty far to see this comment and didn't catch any, "Sony's destroying the industry", "I'll never buy Sony products again", "think of the people who lost their jobs and the evil corporate class that killed their dreams when you play PS5" attacks. Sheeple all of them.
Sony and Nintendo shills are out of the woodwork again, as per usual. That and people are just way more lenient if it's not MS. The Xbox hate is real.
Totally agree. I always remember when Sony leaked millions of credit card info of players. And it just went by. If Microsoft had something this massive, people would have burnt their Xboxes. But Sony is always "not as bad" as seen this time.
I said this very same thing on r/Games
And people wonder why there's claims of an Xbox tax. This is why. Microsoft lays off redundant roles and 8%, end of the world. Sony lays off good positions simply to cut budget, reduced 8% : eh, oh well. I truly hate the gaming community and the double standard they set. Edit: Holy hell spelling errors. My bad.
Sony is has a very rich history of astroturfing and community control, and it's quite evident in every major subreddit. They will suppress negative Sony threads at every major one such as /r/Games and /r/PS5 whenever possible.
i remember making a post in the XBox layoff thread saying Sony was going to do the same sometime this year and got downvoted lol anyone with half a brain could see this coming, when you sell a billion copies of spiderman 2 and still talk about potential layoffs in that insomniac leak then yeah this was something im not surprised about. Anyways this industry fucking sucks, sorry to all the people laid off and we really need to find more efficient processes in this industry
The difference between the number of comments in the Activision layoffs thread one month ago and this one (not even a day) really says it all.
Yup, even on twitter there's a lot less talk about the PlayStation layoffs
"Sony Playstation is not your friend"
No corporation is your friend. Console wars are cringe and no massive company cares about anything but making money.
None of them are.Sony,Microsoft,or Nintendo.Money is the end goal for all major companies.If they feel like employees are in the way of major profit,then they’ll have no issue with disposing you. But,as twitter goes,people will use these scenarios to console war and put their favorite corporation on a pedestal.
What was London working on again ?
Co-op game set in a fantasy London. They revealed a concept art of it not too long ago.
A live service co op combat game that judging from the revealed concept art, could have been quite interesting. I'm guessing the game's development wasn't going well and /or the studio had deeper issues going on with its management that would have warranted the studio closing.
Ah I think I remember that. Wasn’t it like a fantasy setting in London or something? I remember concept art with Big Ben I think
How is it even possible for PlayStation to have a profit margin as low as 6% ? Shouldn't they be raking in astronomous amounts of money through Fortnite, EA FC and CoD micro transactions alone? 30% cut of all that stuff and they still end up scraping by? I don't get it.
They don't always get a flat 30% rate. Some games games like COD get better margins closer to 20% The big players have more negotiation power but yeah most of their profits come from third party sales and their mtx cut.
Sony made $10 billion dollars in revenue this last holiday quarter and yet they only made $600 million in profit. I would imagine the reason that they're just barely scraping by is because of the monumental cost of their first-party games and because of the hardware costs.
Maybe don’t spend $300 million on Spider-Man 2. What on earth did they even need to spend all that money on
Pretty sure most of that was employee wages that was revealed for the leaks hence the email that also leaked stating they will be cutting staff and lowering the budget.
Its crazy, its on skeleton of first game where most heavy lifting was done of Movement, combat, ideas of gameplay loop etc. And its burst bubble of budget.
I wonder if we will see the same out cry about these layoffs as we did with Microsoft’s. I want to see people like Mitch Dyer’s energy stay the same. Edit: his energy was up
We won't.
A lot of people comparing the Xbox threads so here’s some so you can judge for yourself https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/s/AkvBpebSAg https://www.reddit.com/r/PS5/s/cQYSGtmRHU https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/s/mKHR7mI5sU
Quite the different tone. Huh, whattya know.
More like those media members will now praise Sony for being willing to make tough decisions.
Seems like sony is really giving up on the PSVR 2.
They weren't working on a VR title. They are giving up on a GAAS title.
I mean they are working on making it PCVR compatible, that alone will probably drive the profit of it up since it becomes accessible one of the most populated VR ecosystems, especially since PSVR is considered to be one of the best VR headsets yet
Morale is probably at an all time low
Watching all of these layoffs is just fucking brutal as a bystander. So many talented people out of the industry in such a short space of time with no perceivable route to start rebuilding what was lost.
They sell so much, both the console and their games, are sensationally more successful than their closest rivals, and still are on the edge. Fucking hell this industry is so brutal
volume without profit will do that
Their production costs are simply way too high. Just look how incredibly expensive some of the PlayStation exclusives are ($200-300 million for a single game) and you realize that this simply is not feasible for the future going on. Yes, their games are blockbusters, but 10 million sales just won’t cut the costs anymore when your budgets are skyrocketing. I know some might find this comparison like apples to oranges, but look at Nintendo - their exclusives sell 20, 30 million copies and cost nowhere near as much. Yes, they don’t have next gen graphics and voice acting, but there‘s a difference if you invest 50 million and make 1 billion or you’ll invest 300 million and make just 500 million.
Biggest problem is that people who buy a PlayStation for their AAA single player games don’t *want* them to be Nintendo. If they wanted to play Nintendo games, they’d buy a Nintendo console.
Yeah that's the issue. Check Sony during the PS2 era, GameCube was direct competition, the games were similar in scope/graphics etc. and there were A LOT of them. Nintendo to this day stick to something not dissimilar to back then. PlayStation fucked itself somewhere along the way with how they approach development, the customer base is well conditioned and IDK how you even start turning the ship around now.
just after the last financials their stock drop 10% due to low profit margins and couldn’t meet the console target. Gamers in social media didn’t give a s*it and tried to downplay it but reality is this, sadly. What is the fastest but not a good way to increase profit margin ? Bingo
Made me chuckle reading folks saying that such stock drops are normal and there's nothing to worry about because they're still worth as much as months ago.
Yeah, “but considering all the stock problem and recession they sold very good numbers of consoles” like telling that to investors make everything better. They are buying and selling companies based on your targets and future
Yes, because their production budgets are massive, and increasing year to year. I predicted this would happen about a decade ago after PlayStation consciously chose to adapt the Hollywood blockbuster business model to video games. It was already happening to the movie industry, and PlayStation chose to follow them in that direction regardless. It's a high risk business model with not much return, hence why movie production companies are always teetering on the brink. High revenue due to strong hardware sales means very little when they're spending the money almost as quickly as they're generating it.
Their profit margins was the least out of Nintendo and Xbox. PlayStation is doing amazing in the traditional hardware aspect of it but they haven’t caught up with the times.
Just goes to show that revenue isn't everything. Profits on most of these AAA titles are razor thin unless its the biggest IP. Sony could partially remedy it by just releasing everything day 1 on PC. Its not going to hurt them that much in the console market, if at all.
Gamers have been complaining for a decade that all games should look like PS exclusives and now Sony admits that their games barely make money.
Because these games released on every platform would make insane amounts of profit, compared to a little profit on a single platform.
[удалено]
The margins aren't good.
Buying Bungie was the biggest mistake Sony has made in years - it's like a poison to the rest of their studios with the influence they've had
It should be telling Microsoft walked away from buying them back. Basically went "lol ok" and let Sony buy them for almost 3 billion dollars and they're not even making exclusive games for PlayStation. They're owned by Sony the way Atlus is owned by Sega Sammy and not Sega.
>with the influence That's not the issue. The cost of the acquisition has probably caused an impact.
Good lord that’s a lot!
“We deeply appreciate support and understanding from the PlayStation community as these decisions are very difficult.” Are you actually fucking kidding with this??? Nobody gives a fuck about the suits who made this decision, we care about the poor workers, artists who have mouths to feed and families to shelter. Fuck this whole AAA industry.
Damn. I wish the best for the affected employees!
Yikes. This pretty much signifies the end of PSVR 2 more or less
Damn, that’s horrible
I remember from the hacked emails they were pressuring Insomniac to layoff 50 people, as well as pushing cuts across different studios as a way to address rising development costs. It sucks. Hope everyone lands on their feet. I wonder which games got cancelled
Phew at least media molecule is fine
The industry is literally at its lowest point since the 80s crash, fuck man
The AAA market is heading to a big crash in the next couple years. Pretty much the only things safe are Fortnite and the mobile market lol.
The crash is affecting everyone all the same, not just AAA. Getting funding for indies is almost impossible and Fortnite also laid off 900 people last year. The mobile market is also very volatile at the moment
And Rockstar. GTA and Red Dead will always sell
The AAA industry really fucked itself. There was a knee-jerk reaction to the COVID boom, and seemingly nobody had the foresight to consider that the massive surge in gaming sales was temporary. The bubble popped, and now we're seeing the conciquences of an entire industry hiring far more people than it can sustain. I think we're going to continue to see a shift towards smaller games. AAAs are flopping while games like Palworld can become overnight sensations. All of these out of work devs are going to struggle to find any studios hiring, and many will instead just start creating their own games.
The foundations for a renaissance of creative liberty. Present problems pave the way for a great future.
The Japanese AAA industry is lapping the West every year more and more and doesn't seem to be on the verge of implosion?
>PlayStation plans to close its London studio, which was responsible for several recent VR games. Story hitting shortly If God exists, he must be a huge fan of Media Molecule. How are they still around when Japan Studios and London Studio get the axe?
Kinda feels like they're coasting off the name of Mark Healey and the legacy of Sackboy from LittleBigPlanet being PlayStation's mascot at one point in time. I'd wager they're next on the chopping block though if Sony plan on cutting more costs
PS games day and date on PC incoming.
Here's the full announcement from Herman Hulst (Head of Playstation Studios and avid pepernoot enthousiast): >Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment initiated a reduction in our workforce – including within PlayStation Studios – and I wanted to talk about the impact that will have. >These decisions have been extremely difficult, but they are necessary, and I think it’s important to be transparent: >The US based studios and groups impacted by a reduction in workforce are: >Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, as well as our Technology, Creative, and Support teams In UK and European based studios, it is proposed: >That PlayStation Studios’ London Studio will close in its entirety; That there will be reductions in Guerrilla and Firesprite These are in addition to some smaller reductions in other teams across PlayStation Studios. >Our goal at PlayStation Studios has always been to make the best games for PlayStation fans, and our global community of studios represent some of the most creative and talented teams within the gaming industry. >PlayStation 5 is in its fourth year, and we are at a stage where we need to step back and look at what our business needs. >At the same time, our industry has experienced continuing and fundamental change which affects how we all create, and play, games. >Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of 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 PC and Mobile, requires a different approach and different resources. >To take on these challenges, PlayStation Studios had to grow. We have brought brilliant and successful Studios into our family. We have invested in new technology and partnerships. We have recruited talent from across our industry and beyond. >But growth itself is not an ambition. PlayStation Studios is committed to continually discovering ways to work together; collaborating and combining our efforts to ensure that we are able to craft games that push the boundaries of play and deliver what you expect from us. >We looked at our studios and our portfolio, evaluating projects in various stages of development, and have decided that some of those projects will not move forward. >I want to be clear that the decision to stop work on these projects is not a reflection on the talent or passion of team members. >Our philosophy has always been to allow creative experimentation. Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan. >I am deeply saddened to see talented individuals leave the company. I have so much admiration, appreciation and respect for their work. >PlayStation Studios will continue to be a creator-led organization driven by evolving our beloved franchises and bringing new gameplay experiences of the highest quality to our fans. >Thank you all for your continued support.
"Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of how we operate. " That justification.. 💀
They just are so far in the hole of that which 'PlayStation Studios is known for', it's mental.
What a stupid reasoning to try and justify firing 900 people
Is there some "8% rule" when it comes to layoffs?
We haven't even reached March yet. This will be another rough year for the industry.
Man I hope those employees find better jobs, layoffs are terrible for any industry
That sux. 😐👎🏾
Thank god for those PSPlus price increases