SCEE to lay off nearly 10% of its workforce
- Thread starter PiNkY
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I don't really think it's a case of it being unhealthy, and neither does it seem confined to the games division - the rest of Sony has seen similar things over the past couple of years, since Howard Stringer took over. It's probably more a case of the bean counters not seeing where the money is going (presumably having invested heavily in PS3, which won't be near to making a profit yet) and wanting some cost reductions to compensate.
I hope everyone concerned (quite a few of whom frequent this formum) comes out the other side of this without serious consequence. I can't imagine that Sony would be *stupid* enough to let go of some of it's most senior and talented engineers, but my fingers are crossed anyway.
standing ovation
Regular
Layoffs are a red herring. When companies talk about the wholesale elimination of jobs in order to cut costs, what they are really talking about is limiting their liability for those that remain.
So if you really want to see what SCEE is up to, watch the employee benefits package and pension plan.
So if you really want to see what SCEE is up to, watch the employee benefits package and pension plan.
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No indications of this going to effect game development.
Combined with the previous article it looks more like the PR and distribution/publishing departments will be taking the hit (job cut), maybe also 3'rd party relationships.
After all, only ~700 of the 1900 (less than half) are directly involved with actual game development.
And when there in the first interview was clearly stated that they were considering an offer it's obviously a new e-communication system making existing staff redundant (MS makes this kind of packet solutions), programmers and artists aren't redundant (in case people were wondering why he uses the term redundant).
In ways it can be seen as a plus (for everyone else than the 160 people) that SCEE will be speaking with one tongue, there'll be a faster response time and so on.
There's no secret that SCEE PR has seemed a bit unorganized (commercials and especially the French launch event).
Sorry but no financial doom and gloom scenarios this time around, just ordinary business (damned logic got in the way, again again).
Combined with the previous article it looks more like the PR and distribution/publishing departments will be taking the hit (job cut), maybe also 3'rd party relationships.
After all, only ~700 of the 1900 (less than half) are directly involved with actual game development.
And when there in the first interview was clearly stated that they were considering an offer it's obviously a new e-communication system making existing staff redundant (MS makes this kind of packet solutions), programmers and artists aren't redundant (in case people were wondering why he uses the term redundant).
In ways it can be seen as a plus (for everyone else than the 160 people) that SCEE will be speaking with one tongue, there'll be a faster response time and so on.
There's no secret that SCEE PR has seemed a bit unorganized (commercials and especially the French launch event).
Sorry but no financial doom and gloom scenarios this time around, just ordinary business (damned logic got in the way, again again).
Apparently, it is not just http://users1.wsj.com/lmda/do/check...17689187570373897.html?mod=home_whats_news_usEurope
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=24287
This sound more likely ancillary jobs rather than game development, but the idea of online distibution...that's a long way off for the mainstream! It's not like the jobs needed to get a disc in the shops have gone as the games only need be hosted on a network!
Not really. They could be refering to the online marketing side rather than the logistics aspect. Clearly, physical distribution is still mainstream today.
e.g., How LittleBigPlanet will appear on PSN first to generate demand and value among hardcore gamers, and then cut to Blu-ray for general consumption; or using blogs and online events to promote titles, ...
They could also mean (better) online B2B infrastructure to support their daily operation. I don't know how advanced is the gaming industry in this area (in Europe).
e.g., How LittleBigPlanet will appear on PSN first to generate demand and value among hardcore gamers, and then cut to Blu-ray for general consumption; or using blogs and online events to promote titles, ...
They could also mean (better) online B2B infrastructure to support their daily operation. I don't know how advanced is the gaming industry in this area (in Europe).
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yea, not good any time someone loses a livelihood.
agree, best wishes to the people it impacts.
It's Stringer delegating his mandate down the line for lower ranks. I don't know how they are going to hande SCEJ cuts due to cultural issues.
Some great companies are known to trim the lower performing 5% workforce every year. While it is generally a good idea to do so (especially for companies who were successful for a few years), it can affect morale initially, or if mishandled.
Stringer was said to be adept at it. I hope they take care of their people during the exit.
FWIW, Apple is hiring like crazy these days to beef up their only 18,000 workforce (Is Sony still at 120,000 WW ?). Many think the recent delays (Leopard, AppleTV) and tight iPod deadline prompted them to do so.
Some great companies are known to trim the lower performing 5% workforce every year. While it is generally a good idea to do so (especially for companies who were successful for a few years), it can affect morale initially, or if mishandled.
Stringer was said to be adept at it. I hope they take care of their people during the exit.
FWIW, Apple is hiring like crazy these days to beef up their only 18,000 workforce (Is Sony still at 120,000 WW ?). Many think the recent delays (Leopard, AppleTV) and tight iPod deadline prompted them to do so.
Thanks for the slap.
What I meant was electronic communication systems, those Microsoft Business Solutions is specialised in making.
After all, in the first interview there was said that depending on the solution proposed they would fire up to 10% redundant workers. Again, I only got what the press writes to go on (Maybe they took quotes out of context or altered the words, I'm not the one to tell) and my education where I scored some cheap side points on E Business Solutions.
Now you know where I pulled my thoughts from, I hope you'll enlighten me too.
Would be nice to know how programmers and artist can be made redundant.
And am I mistaken with my numbers for people being directly associated with game development? As one who works for SCEE you can enlighten me.
I can only add the amount of people working at each studio (=~700)and compare it to the numbers for SCE WW (2200).
Maybe the NeoGaf speculations are true and I'm completely off, SCEE is going to fire 160 game developers
The only communications I've seen on this are an email from David Reeves (which has been reproduced in full on the web already), and a small interview with Nick Sharples. Yeh.. says about 10%.. but I saw nothing else that you were referring to. Saying 'solution' does not mean some kind of software/process roll out. Hence my slap.V-G said:
Unfortunately, It's easy. Programmers & artists don't have some kind of immunity to redundancy, as any casual observation of the games industry over the past few years has proven. I don't know why you think it's different for those roles compared to any other job.V-G said:
It would be inappropriate for me to spill numbers for everything.. but taking SCEE Cambridge into consideration, we currently employ 86 people - all on game development side (with the exception of a very small number of admin staff). And I now know that we've got a fairly large percentage of people who are at risk of redundancy, and are no longer in our building. But note that nobody has been made redundant yet though..V-G said:
Dean
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Craptastic. A couple years ago I went through a similar period where the IT company I worked for cut staff under restructuring & relocation. Never fun, especially if there isn't anything better on the other side. I hope everything pans out for our friends at Sony as well as their coworkers who may find themselves in a tough spot. Best wishes.
On the business side... doesn't make much sense. Yes, restructuring is necessary at times. But for software you would think it would happen at the dev house level to weed out redundancy and inefficiency. Sure, the top can push down protocols and metrics as well as demand status reports. They can also insist on reducing redundancy by more robust collaboration through departments and studios. But this seems wrong side up. Content is the vital cog to any platform and that, maybe above everything else, is what Sony needs right now. I say keep the devs and cut elsewhere.
On the business side... doesn't make much sense. Yes, restructuring is necessary at times. But for software you would think it would happen at the dev house level to weed out redundancy and inefficiency. Sure, the top can push down protocols and metrics as well as demand status reports. They can also insist on reducing redundancy by more robust collaboration through departments and studios. But this seems wrong side up. Content is the vital cog to any platform and that, maybe above everything else, is what Sony needs right now. I say keep the devs and cut elsewhere.
crystalcube
Newcomer
This is always tough and as long as you are working for someone you are not immune no matter what work you do.
Sorry it was never my intention to sound disrespectful of the situation SCEE employees find them self in and at the time of writing the post I thought my attempt at north European galgenhumor was made evident by the context it was presented in.
It was wrong of me not to elaborate more and provide links to the sources I referred to:
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=15812
"GameDaily BIZ can exclusively reveal that Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) is currently examining the real possibility of a headcount reduction as the company seeks to streamline its operations and become more cost effective."
A quite normal procedure to free up cash for products.
Banks and phone companies do this constantly without people screaming doom and gloom, it's actually often seen as a healthy sign and the companies are often rewarded through an increase in the value of their shares.
"We have informed our staff that we are considering proposals that may result in a number of redundancies across the SCEE Group in Europe," Sharples told GameDaily BIZ. "Until those consultations are complete we will not know how many redundancies may be needed. We will not be providing any additional information on this process or making further announcements at the conclusion of the process."
To me offers means going through stake holders and work procedures to make them more cost efficient, a process which usually have very high initial costs where the workers have to adapt to new work structures.
It's not a sign of bad economy or game development taking a hit which is the rumors my initial post was directed at.
And taking this Dec 8th '06 article into consideration
http://news.com.com/Sony+outsources+IT+development+to+India/2100-1012_3-6142005.html
"Sony Europe is outsourcing several of its core IT development functions to India-based Satyam Computer Services. "
"According to Satyam, the move will "enable the Sony Infrastructure Services team to focus on core activities such as platform enhancement, optimization and innovation" while Satyam handles IT development for Sony sales and distribution, warehouse management, finance and business intelligence systems."
"Sarma called the Sony deal a "milestone" for ODCs. "The fact that Sony has decided to go ahead with an investment inside Satyam shows the maturity of offering such a service at such a high level," he said. He added that the center was expected to employ between 55 and 80 staff by the end of the financial year."
It was quite evident even back then that people at SCEE would become redundant.
Also it goes hand in hand with the offer mentioned in the Sharples interview.
But there was no indications about the core development being the target for the axe, so it would have been wrong of me to call down doom and gloom making up things like entire games being dropped due to SCEE having financial issues.
The closest thing to the doom and gloom scenario is the usual Internet journalism where they take quotes out of context from existing articles/interviews and add their own unqualified spin (At times I feel that having "Internet" added to journalism means a mandatory drop in quality).
And had it been the ol' job harvester method then expansion of development resources SCEE has gone through lately wouldn't have made sense. I mean why would they expand if they knew that they would have to cut jobs afterward? In my world it would make no sense when keeping the existing staff is so much cheaper as it avoids pensions and compensations issues from firing existing staff members.
Just not a valid move for a company which has financial issues/unhealthy economy.
I feel with those people though I can't set my self in their position.
But I do not know if it will have any effect on the games being developed because there's no indication of this in the press releases or the insider letter.
So I appreciate that you took time to share this info with me. :smile:
recap: my initial post was directed at those hoping this meant doom and gloom for the PS3 console because 1'st party studios and games got axed (the majority of people attracted by these news).
Those who are/will be effected by this are the ones getting fired, the rest is just speculations and not confirmed facts.
