[B3D news] Latest breakdown per studios of the SCEE lay-offs

[Farid]

http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/194

Last week rumours about possible lay-offs circulated amongst Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) employees. These hearsays turned out to be more than just hot air when SCEE executives confirmed the company's intentions to reduce their global workforce.

As prophesised, during the last few days SCEE proceeded to announce layoffs of up to 160 employees from their different studios and subsidiaries in upcoming months. According to sources close to SCEE, the actual estimated break down per studio for the future redundancies is the following, so far:

• ~15 positions at SCEE Cambridge (out of ~90 employees in total).
• Between 50 and 60 employees at SCEE Liverpool (out of more than 500 employees in total).
• ...

Read the rest of the breakdown on the frontpage.

Oh, while we're at it, I aslo wanted to send a shout out to all the folks who lost their jobs at SCEE. Good luck on your future endeavours, folks.

 

[patsu]

Vysez, do you have more information about Sony's updated structure ? It would be more telling than these unfortunate layoffs. In particular, how're the PR, sales and marketing arm affected ?

 

[Bad_Boy]

Really sucks for those people who lost their jobs. Hopefully they can quickly get back into it and find work. I wonder how these layoffs will affect what patsu mentioned.

 

[PARANOiA]

Heartfelt best wishes to any reading that are directly affected.

A quick Wiki tells me, of games I've enjoyed created at the impacted sites:
Liverpool:

• F1 '07
• Wipeout Pure

Cambridge:

• Medievil

London:

• Porsche Challenge
• Singstar

Let's hope future games we all love (regardless of the flag you fly) aren't negatively impacted.

Damn finance guys

 

[Farid]

Vysez, do you have more information about Sony's updated structure ? It would be more telling than these unfortunate layoffs. In particular, how're the PR, sales and marketing arm affected ?

It's not easy to get a coherent and stable signal from SCEE at this time.
And I don't think they're really eager to discuss the restructuring details with the press for the moment.

We'll have to wait a bit and let the dust settle, then we might get some clearer view of the situation. I will of course try to keep you guys updated as much I can.

 

[PatrickL]

News

Sony Liverpool (WipeOut, Formula One) where most of Sony’s European QA work is carried out lost over 50 employees, Sony Cambridge (24: The Game, Primal, GhostHunter) lost 20 members of staff, almost a quarter of the workforce based there, and the London studio (HOME, The Getaway, EyeToy, SingStar) was subject to 50 dismissals. Up to 30 sales, marketing are PR staff across a number of countries were also made redundant.

Seems close to what was posted on the front page.

 

[Crossbar]

I found these news kind of interesting. Sony first party developer Relentless Software (behind the Buzz franchise and some Eyetoy games) is preparing to expand their crew in Brighton.

Relentless Software today announced a move into new offices in central Brighton which will facilitate production of PS2 and PS3 projects and potentially house double their current roster of 45 staff. The company is also recruiting.
The new office is almost twice the size of the company's previous office, with over 7,000sq ft of floor space including a large production floor of over 5,000sq ft and a café of over 1,000sq ft. It will house the expanding team behind the multi-million selling Buzz! franchise as it begins work on an unannounced project for PlayStation 3 in addition to games for PlayStation 2, .

Andrew Eades, development director of Relentless said, “The new building offers us great space in a great location. We firmly believe in providing an enjoyable working environment that is focused on productivity within a 9-5 day. To date we’ve proved this works and that great, successful games can be made without a crunch.â€

Creative director David Amor added, “We intend to be in the new offices for some time to come – we’re looking to expand gradually and build on the reputation we’ve gained for producing innovative and social games.â€

Relentless, the world’s second most successful independent developer according to this year’s Develop 100 listings, are currently recruiting programmers, artists and other production staff for its upcoming projects on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3.

Interesting this is happening at the same time as the Sony studios in Britain are trimmed. It indicates that the down sizing probably was not due to a decrease in the number new ventures from SCEE and more likely an attempt to restructure the business to become more efficient. The independent studios are more likely to be better trimmed from the start, while large mulitnational companies can sometime grow an unhealthy amount of administration overhead which generate inefficient business practises. Do we have any information about how many developers (if any) that have been involved in the lay-offs? Lay-offs are also often used as an excuse to replace/reshuffle/revitalise bad management.

I wonder what kind of game the "unannounced project for PlayStation 3" may be, maybe a Playstation Eye game? In that case they are kind of competing with the Sony London Studio. I guess Sony put their money where they think it will get most from it or they just want to spread the risk and encourage innovation.

As a side note: I read here that there were no lay-offs at the Guerilla Studio due to the strict Dutch labour laws.

Employees at Guerilla Studios in Amsterdam, where work is ongoing on a new Killzone title for PS3, were not subject to the same degree of downsizing due to stricter Dutch labor laws.

I wonder how much truth that holds, maybe they just were not able lay-off the people they wanted due to some "last in - first out" law that hindered them. But if they were truelly over-staffed that woudn´t have prevented them IMO.

 

[DeanoC]

Okay be careful with "First party" with Sony cos they get it wrong. They have a category called "First Party External" or what the rest of the games biz calls "Second Party". In this you will (I think) find Relentless, Media Molecule, Evo and in fact Ninja Theory.

"First Party External" is a company not owned by Sony but currently published exclusively by Sony. Which is Second Party unless you Sony.

Bizarre heh...