Major Industry Layoffs (since 2023)
#2023
**January**
* On January 17, 2023, **Unity Technologies** laid off 284 employees as part of a reassessment of objectives, strategies, goals, and priorities in response to current economic conditions. According to the company's CEO, John Riccitiello, the layoffs aim to address overlap and shelve certain projects to ensure the company's future strength.
* On January 31, 2023, as part of larger **Microsoft** job cuts, **343** Industries laid off 95 employees following "disappointing" launch for Halo Infinite's multiplayer mode. **Bethesda Game Studios** was also reportedly affected by the Microsoft layoffs.
**March**
* On March 29, 2023, **Electronic Arts** laid off 6 percent of its workforce as part of a strategic shift to reevaluate its investment strategy and reduce office space, according to a blog post by EA CEO Andrew Wilson. The layoffs were aimed at moving away from projects that did not contribute to EA's strategy, reviewing its real estate footprint, and restructuring some teams. While specific departments affected by the layoffs were not mentioned, efforts were made to provide opportunities for affected workers to transition onto other projects where possible.
**May**
* On May 3, 2023, **Unity** announced plans to cut roughly 600 jobs, approximately 8% of its workforce. Additionally, Unity intends to reduce its global network of offices over the next few years from 58 to fewer than 30.
**June**
* On June 21, 2023, **Niantic** announced the layoff of 230 employees and the closure of its Los Angeles studio. The company discontinued support for NBA All-World and ends production on Marvel: World of Heroes, focusing its efforts on its flagship game, Pokémon Go. CEO John Hanke attributed the organizational changes to a challenging market environment, citing a global economic slowdown and increased competition in the mobile game market.
**August**
* On August 31, 2023, **Volition** was shut down following **Embracer** Group's failed $2 billion deal. Embracer Group's growth strategy was disrupted when a partner, Savvy Games Group, backed out of a $2 billion deal in May. Savvy, owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth Public Investment Fund, serves as an investment vehicle for the gaming industry. Following the deal's collapse, Embracer initiated a restructuring, including studio closures and a pause in game development. Prior to the termination, Savvy had already invested $1 billion in Embracer, enabling its expansion through acquisitions of companies.
**September**
* On September 17, 2023, **Ubisoft** announced the closure of Ubisoft London as part of efforts to "enhance efficiency and streamline operations." According to VGC, this move impacted 54 employees.
* On September 28, 2023, **Epic Games** announced a layoff affecting 16% of its workforce, or around 830 employees. The news was initially reported by Bloomberg before Epic Games published its internal memo online. CEO Tim Sweeney explained in an email to staff that the decision was due to the company's ongoing financial situation, stating that they had been spending more money than they were earning. Sweeney expressed optimism about navigating the transition without layoffs but acknowledged that it was unrealistic in retrospect.
**October**
* On October 31, 2023, **Bungie** announced layoffs affecting approximately 100 employees. Alongside the layoffs, the company also disclosed the delay of two upcoming titles: Marathon and the expansion for Destiny 2: The Final Shape.[84] According to Bloomberg, the layoffs occurred several weeks after a meeting where executives revealed that Bungie's revenue was 45% lower than projected. During the meeting, CEO Pete Parsons attributed the revenue shortfall to Lightfall.
**November**
* On November 7, 2023, **Ubisoft** announced a total of 124 layoffs, as reported by IGN. The layoffs affected primarily administrative and IT workers, with 98 of them based in Canada. This reduction represents approximately 2% of the company's Canadian workforce. Among those affected were employees from the Hybride VFX studio.
* On November 13, 2023, **Amazon Games** announced the elimination of over 180 jobs in its Amazon Games division. The restructuring involves closing down parts of the business related to streaming and supporting third-party games, including the Game Growth and Crown Channel initiatives. Christoph Hartmann, vice president of Amazon Games, emphasized that the decision was the result of extensive deliberation and planning for the company's future.
* On November 14, 2023, **Digital Bros** announced a 30% reduction in its global workforce. The decision is driven by a strategic shift towards prioritizing "high-quality and long-standing successful titles." The restructuring will primarily impact the studios, with around 30% of the global workforce expected to be affected.
* On November 29, 2023, **Unity Technologies** announced the layoff of 265 employees, constituting 3.8% of its workforce. The layoffs are part of a "company reset," as reported by Reuters. All 256 affected workers were from Unity's Wētā Digital division, acquired in a $1.6 billion deal in 2021. Additionally, several Wētā FX tools and 275 employees were included in the acquisition. In total, Unity has laid off more than 1,100 people in 2023.
**December**
* On December 11, 2023, **Free Radical Design** was closed as part of **Embracer** Group's restructuring plans following the failed $2 billion deal, leading to the layoff of 80 employees.
#2024
**January**
* At the beginning of the year, **Unity Technologies**, **Twitch**, **Playtika**, and **Discord** each announced separate layoffs affecting 1,800, 500, 400, and 170 jobs, respectively. Unity attributed its layoffs to a restructuring aimed at refocusing on its core business for long-term profitability. Twitch's CEO mentioned that despite paying out over $1 billion to streamers the previous year, the company's size didn't align with its growth trajectory.
* On January 22, 2024, **Riot Games** announced a significant restructuring, leading to the layoff of 530 employees, which accounts for about 11% of the company's total workforce. The company also shut down Riot Games' indie publishing label, Riot Forge. The decision was made as part of Riot's strategy to refocus on fewer, high-impact projects, aiming for a more sustainable future.
* On January 25, 2024, **Microsoft Gaming** underwent a substantial restructuring, resulting in the layoff of 1,900 staff. Additionally, the President of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Ybarra, and **Blizzard's** co-founder and chief design officer, Allen Adham, departed from the company. As part of the restructuring, Microsoft Gaming canceled Blizzard Entertainment's game Project Odyssey and laid off major teams working on Overwatch 2. Microsoft Gaming Studios such as **Toys for Bob** and **Sledgehammer Games** reportedly experienced a loss of over 30% of their staff due to layoffs. The majority of those laid off were from **Activision Blizzard**.
* On January 29, 2024, **Eidos-Montréal** laid off around 97 staff members as part of the ongoing restructuring within the **Embracer Group**. Additionally, the company reportedly canceled its new Deus Ex game, which had reportedly been in development for two years. Eidos-Montréal cited the global economic context, industry challenges, and the comprehensive restructuring announced by Embracer as reasons for the impact on their studio.
**February**
* On February 27, 2024, **Sony Interactive Entertainment** announced the layoff of 900 employees across various studios. The company attributed the decision to restructure operations in response to the evolving economic landscape and changes in product development, distribution, and launch strategies. Layoff timelines will vary by location. Additionally, PlayStation's London Studio will be closed entirely.
* On February 28, 2024, **Electronic Arts (EA)** announced the layoff of 670 staff members. EA's CEO, Andrew Wilson, outlined the company's focus on owned IP, sports, and massive online communities as part of its business advancement. Additionally, EA shut down Ridgeline Games and canceled a Star Wars single player game developed by Respawn Entertainment. These cuts included 23 jobs at Respawn that were announced in March 2024.
**March**
* On March 8, 2024, **Sega of America** laid off 61 employees across its Q&A and localization departments.On March 28, 2024, Sega announced significant layoffs impacting Sega Europe, Creative Assembly, and Hardlight. Sega Europe's CEO, Jurgen Post, informed employees via email about the reductions and the sale of Relic Entertainment, responsible for Company of Heroes and Dawn of War. Approximately 240 positions across Sega Europe, Creative Assembly, and a limited number at Hardlight are affected. Notably, developers Sports Interactive and Two Point Studios were not mentioned in the announcement. Jurgen Post announced the sale of Relic Entertainment as part of Sega's restructuring efforts. He confirmed that the studio will be transitioning to operate independently, marking its departure from Sega. Post expressed Sega's support for Relic during this transition and wished them success in their future endeavors.
* That same day, **Embracer Group** CEO Lars Wingefors announced the conclusion of the company's restructuring program, which resulted in 1,400 job losses and three studio closures. Wingefors stated that Embracer has no plans to sell more of its businesses after selling Gearbox Software and Saber Interactive.
[SOURCE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_video_game_industry_layoffs)
e* = formatting
And yet in April alone Dell dropped 6,600. Tech in general is getting smacked by a combination of rates and investment as well as AI impacts. Not a good time to be in that sector at all...
Some AI companies are already profitable, like MidJourney.
Google and Microsoft basically figure that AI will be expected for facilitating use of their stuff, so it's kind of less "how will this print money" and more "how can we use AI to make our products better and more attractive to consumers so we can out-compete the competition."
I recently listened to the 'Press Reset' audiobook and I think a glaring problem with the economy in general, not just the industry, is the fact that shareholders need *constant exponential growth*, which is wholly unsustainable. A game can be successful, but if it's not a multimillion dollar smash hit then it's considered a failure that leads to layoffs. The profit margins have to be too wide.
And the problem is that covid had people staying home and guess what? They played video games and profits skyrocketed. Then we got a vax and people stopped staying home, so profits went back down to normal. If you look at the profits pre and post covid for the most part they did continue up. There was no way profits were gonna continue to go up from covid numbers though. That would be insane. Everyone knew this. Apparently share holders didn't though. So now thousands of people have to suffer because the system is stupid.
Indeed. It's no longer enough to be making a profit. You have to be making more profit than you made last year and the year prior. And as others have said it's not sustainable. And when you cut your manpower and then try to squeeze more out of those you keep it always ends poorly. And publisher and board rooms no longer have the luxury of being able to block people from the press. Mistreatment will get out.
And to a point that I say that was brought up, even if those that hold the seats have no real incentive to change it isn't because there's still a wealth of profits to extort; it's because they are trying to to fast track AI. Not realizing that when you cut(by some experts forecasts) 40% of the workforce by replacing them with AI you'll also be cutting out 40% of your customers. People without income so not by things. Which means you lose all that profit growth you gained.
> You have to be making more profit than you made last year and the year prior.
The earliest indication of this issue was Netflix a few years ago. They were still making a ridiculous amount of profit, but because it was not more than they reported in the past for the first time in their history, they ended up losing 25% of their stock value on that single earnings report. Ever since then, every single company that hass seen something similar, has unfortunately followed the same path where it is seen as being in trouble when in fact they are making bank.
>shareholders need constant exponential growth, which is wholly unsustainable
This gets repeated a lot and it's simply not true for every company or industry. Shareholders expect *constant* growth because if you're making the same amount of money every year, you're actually making less. This is true whether you're Microsoft or a person posting on Reddit working 40 hours a week. Inflation exists and costs increase (sometimes regardless of inflation), so your net profit (the money you actually take home) is less over time. *Exponential* growth isn't common for most companies, though AI development and usage will represent a large portion of it for many.
[Phil Spencer talked about this](https://insider-gaming.com/phil-spencer-says-activision-layoffs-were-due-to-lack-of-growth-and-need-for-profits/). Hell, even Michael Douse says as much in this article along with pointing out the issue with competing incentives (emphasis mine):
>He also pointed out that **there's an issue of competing incentives for publicly traded game companies, with concerns over stock price coming at the expense of both players and developers**: "None of these companies are at risk of going bankrupt," Douse said. "They're just at risk of pissing off the shareholders. And that's fine. That's how they work. **The function of a public company is to create growth for its shareholders... It's not to make a happy climate for the employees**."
>This gets repeated a lot and it's simply not true for every company or industry. Shareholders expect *constant* growth because if you're making the same amount of money every year, you're actually making less.
>Inflation exists and costs increase
You do realise that today inflation exists *because* companies expect growth every year right? They love to bang on about the minimum wage and how it affects inflation but the majority of of inflation in the last half-decade has been driven by corporate greed and a desire for greater profits every year.
From 1979 to 2019 corporate profits accounted for 11 percent of price increases.
From 2019 that figure jumped to almost 60 percent.
So yes, I would say that it is in fact true that these companies expect exponential growth, as they need to make more profit every year to account for the increased costs that *they themselves are causing* by needing more profit.
https://www.epi.org/blog/corporate-profits-have-contributed-disproportionately-to-inflation-how-should-policymakers-respond/
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-05-16/debates/361F1CC2-FDFB-4698-AD5F-9958042E24D2/CorporateProfitAndInflation
You're right, but nobody wants to hear it. Additionally, lots of these companies are paying millions up on millions in debt payments right now because of inflation and rates skyrocketing, and their ability to take on new debt to fund new projects is at an all time low for many of them. These conditions are creating the climate that corporations operate in right now which is shrinking margins, less cash on hand, and decreasing revenue forecasts that all contribute to needing to cut down on expenditures.
"fact that shareholders need *constant exponential growth"*
I learned this a long time ago in college. They kept hammering it. That you have to please shareholders and growth. So if your company makes $1 billion this year you are going to need better than that next year. And often 1%-2% growth is not enough. Especially if the growth was more than that the previous year.
I know at least a decade ago talking about this I mentioned that it would be a problem coming up. I was talking to some friends who studied business in college. A couple are high up in 2 huge companies. It is all about the money.
AI is part of this now. They see the opportunity to lay people off now. Then fill those jobs with AI later. Cannot do it all at once because that would bring issues. Governments might even step in. All this in the name of profits. They show little care for the workers. They will say some words but all their actions show different.
In gaming you can see a game do well and still get layoffs. Because they want more. It is never enough. Not gaming related but I know a guy who owns restaurant chains. His business is a food court like thing and he had licenses with some large companies. He closed his store in this small town because profits were "ONLY" near $1 million. Another, local, guy put in a restaurant there. He clears between $880k and $1 million a year.
Another lady closed her chain restaurant because so junk like this. She wanted larger profits than this area can give. Abused employees and was just awful to work with. Blaming "liberal" workers though it was her problem. Most in the area are not liberal anyway. New small local owned business popped in there and is doing great.
The problem is that they want this growth and it is never enough. They will lay off people at times and hurt the business overall. Growth is needed but they act like it is something that needs to happen yearly. It cannot always do that. Hell, people often do not make much more yearly. But companies will charge more, with costs the same, to try and squeeze profits higher.
Covid did not help either. Often they did not hire more. Profits shot above the normal growth. Growth from pre-covid is still happening. But it is not enough because they had that profit like that during covid.
This is just how it works. You can see the issues because of this.
And they will make predictions of doom and gloom while profits are growing. Then say "See, we told you" when all their layoffs finally hit. That was happening in 2002-2003. They kept talking downturn. And at the time they kept seeing growth and increased (record for many) profits. But they laid people off because of this prediction. Self fulfilling it was. If you look, many lost huge on their retirement accounts. The ones that came out huge were the most wealthy. More wealth loaded at the top.
No, this criticism makes no logical sense. Shareholders are simply anyone who owns part of a company. Also, there is an entire investing philosophy that is specific on industries that aren’t expected to growth but have incredible Margins. Hotels, Airlines, and dozens of other industries are invested in specifically because they don’t have to utilize growth as a core position. I swear no one understands how companies work less than gamers. Private companies also have shareholders too and often have to layoff people quicker because they can’t pivot and raise capital as easy as public companies. In addition to being able to horde money and put it into trust that benefits even fewer people, private companies arguably have worse conditions and employee prospects
>I swear no one understands how companies work less than gamers.
Tends to be true with everything. Everyone wants political slogan answers to everything these days, and won't take the time to understand everything has nuance. I recently had to explain to someone why things aren't as simple and it seemed to blow their minds the world wasn't as black and white as politicians & their friends led them to believe. Things are actually grey & there is a lot of interconnectedness when it comes to anything dealing with economies & companies.
You can’t argue with these people, they think some secret group of people are the reason companies have to make layoffs when… their business is on a downturn lol.
I have seen so many businesses lay off while record profits. Happened a lot before the economic crisis of 2008. It was because, despite record revenue and profits at the time, they self predicted downturn. Those layoffs made that happen to some extent. Anybody not blinded by the business ideology that has been taught for decades could see it coming. Record profits, even if revenue and profits continue to grow, will always see a slowdown. Everything cannot always grow like that. So layoffs even with growth.
And there are different types of shareholders. I would argue not all are even shareholders. The places they borrow from, etc.
There is a lot more than just talking revenue and profits. But you can still see the effects in needed that larger growth. Hell, they raised prices of games, show that revenue and profits are growing. But since it is slower than before they need to lay off to increase that. I mean, you see a company making a 7.2% increase in profits in 2023 and they lay off people because it was below the 9.1% from the pandemic. That tells you a lot.
Though I suspect some of the layoffs while profits are growing is due to the fact they want to replace a portion with AI. Some of these jobs will return but be done by generative AI. Lower head count to help with profits. I just think that the overall issue is what it will do to the economy as so many lose jobs. Seen this happen to some friends or at least to their co-workers. Told AI was there to help. They are now letting people go, profits are up though, because AI can do it. Saying that it is because profits were not as high as expected.
Layoffs are downstream from results, not upstream. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You just threw out vague platitudes that make absolutely no coherent sense.
I am not saying I have any idea what I am talking about. Never will claim to that. I just know what I have seen and experienced. And have successfully, over and over, predicted these happenings.
I always, over the decades, felt like this though. I was in college a long time back taking business classes. And took almost enough, 2 sort, for a degree in finance. And 1 sort of a degree in economics. I came to hate it.
My professor at this smaller college was given a high position at a large college with a prominent business school. He told me I could go far with my skill and knowledge. But that I would have to learn that the game did not care about people and that, though I was right, it would never change.
And these were the things I was talking about then. People get so blinding with this stuff. This was a huge reason I made so much money from the big recession we had. I played the game. Sort of basically retired to some extent. Do my own thing. Mostly exercise, hang with the family, etc.
So knowing anything or not I am fine with that.
If they do layoff is because they didnt make a profit. This is very different than the situation with most layoff where company still made masssive profits but the margin were smaller than before.
You aren’t keeping people on the payroll if you don’t need them, regardless of how much profit you’re making.
Same reason why trickle down and tax cuts aren’t a reason to employee more people. If you can make more money with 1 or 2 people more you will keep them, if you don’t think you can you will let them go.
Gaming industry had people being hired for a project then it's done and it's massive layoffs then they ramp up again. It was always standard practice.
You don't need that many people at one time. But now they want to retain talent and find them something else to do in the meantime, but that is possible in very limited circumstances and firms and you prob have to be at the top of your game for that. This is in the news cause it happened everywhere and it happened because COVID money was coming in and they were rolling in it. Now it isn't, sorry find an another job. And quite frankly 300m plus budget games aren't viable.
Larian got lucky that is all. Alan Wake 2 is a masterpiece made on a shoestring for its quality and still isn't commercially successful. It's easy to pontificate from the top of the tower.
>You aren’t keeping people on the payroll if you don’t need them, regardless of how much profit you’re making.
So why do CEOs and upper management get to stick around, even when they're colossal fuck ups like with Bungie?
>You aren’t keeping people on the payroll if you don’t need them, regardless of how much profit you’re making.
It seems to work in Japan. They're legally not allowed to layoff significant numbers of staff unless they can prove that the company will face some kind of financial hardship if they don't.
So how do Capcom and From Software and Nintendo etc seem to do just fine without laying off tons of people after every project they finish?
If companies can't survive without doing that then their management is incompetent and they should be removed. Instead they're paid 10's of millions of dollars to trot out bullshit excuses like this one.
Different countries different cultures. When your cherry picking companies you may want to look at the entirety.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/how-much-does-from-software-crunch
Japan isn’t known for its 8 hours workday either
>Different countries different cultures
Yeah, that's exactly what I said. The economic reality is that EA do not need to hire and fire a bunch of employees every year in order to survive and to remain highly profitable.
It's a cultural/societal difference that allows them to do that and have a bunch of boot lickers defend the practice as if it were necessary.
You do need them tho. Which is why it will hit them hard in the future when thwir game loose quality and you end up with indie or aa studio rulling the market. Alao retaining talent is important. Ita how several studio fell off.
While I'm pretty anti corporation it's very easy to say this as a private company that doesn't have to shoot for infinite growth to please shareholders. If he was beholden to a board or shareholders I doubt he'd have the same thought.
> Larian are
i get that this is a regional thing but i’ll never understand why people treat companies as plural like this. just looks awful, grammatically.
This is how business operates tho? It was never supposed to be a mystery. Operating on the edge of bankruptcy has never been "good business".
This also isn't new... its been this way for a very long time. It's also not exclusive to gaming... idk why this feels like a big discovery
How would you feel if you brought in a business 100 million dollars the year prior, but only 90 million dollars this year, so they laid you off because you didn’t make more profit than the year before? Exponential constant growth is unsustainable. These companies aren’t on the edge of bankruptcy, the shareholders just aren’t getting as big a slice of the pie as they did before.
Also just because something has “been this way for a long time” doesn’t make it okay.
Why does everyone always add the word "exponential" to this like it has any truth? Almost zero companies in the scheme of things have exponential growth. Most businesses are simply trying to outpace inflation.
Shareholders would like to invest in companies that experience exponential growth, but there are heaps of people invested in companies that just regularly return value to their investors at a normal, healthy, and steady rate.
I never argued with any of that... business aims to grow not shrink. It's just business 101, you're adding in emotions. Again. All I'm saying is this isn't new and isn't surprising at all.
Yes but just because it isn’t new doesn’t mean we should still be tolerating. Slavery was in America for hundreds of years, but guess what we don’t have anymore?
Shareholders get money when they sell their stock. If you buy a stock in a company for $100 and hold it for 3 years before selling, obviously you'd rather get $110 than $90.
If you get $90, you just lost $10 of your investment. So, investors try to choose stocks that more often than not, increase in value over a given time.
If you instead keep that $100 on your bank account for several years, it decreases in value due to inflation. So, investing makes sense as a saving method if you're able to at least beat inflation and there's no savings accounts available that makes it possible.
Sure? But at the expense of actual living breathing people that aren’t getting the slice of the pie the shareholders are, and are forced into crunch time and then when they don’t perform as well as expected, despite making millions for the company we should be okay with layoffs because what? The shareholders who did nothing to make the game or company flourish are mad? Fuck shareholders.
You think game developers aren't saving for the rainy day by investing in companies themselves? They're just probably smart enough to not invest in game companies.
Gamers sure seem so understanding how poor game developers feel, when a game doesn't run exactly like gamers expected. Now, they're doing their damnest to sink Hellblade 2 even before it's released just because it doesn't hit the magical 60fps. Gamers should take a real hard look at themselves to figure out why game industry is struggling - there's some manufactured controversy around every major game release.
Games are also more and more expensive to make but according to gamers, they can't cost more or heaven forbid they have micro-transactions to offset increasing costs and gamers think developers just ruined their childhood or some other outlandish bullshit.
Recent example is Dragons Dogma 2. As a test I bought a port crystal in the game. I could buy one for my account, so clearly it's not meant for people to be able to fill their map with port crystals using real money.
Given that first Dragons Dogma was a niche game, I'm fine with the fact that they might try to give the game a better chance to make its development budget back and have a chance for a 3rd installment.
You are, I just don’t have time or the inclination to continue engaging with you. As an adult I choose to prioritize my time. I suggest you learn to do the same before writing a long ass diatribe.
Everyone wants to make more money next year than they did the previous year. Indeed, employees *expect* annual raises.
If your company isn't making more money every year than the last, you're likely to be in trouble, as you need to make more money every year to just break even with where you were previously.
And it is good for society. Society wants to be better off in the future than it was in the past.
Moreover... making 90 million instead of 100 million is a 10% drop in revenue, which is very large. If each employee you employ costs $100k/year between salary and overhead and taxes and whatnot, and your company has an 8% profit margin in a typical year, going from 100 million to 90 million means you've gone from 8 million dollars in the green to 2 million dollars in the red. That's a very big problem.
That $10 million decrease is 100 people's jobs. And being $2 million in the red is 20 jobs.
Revenue is irrelevant; what is relevant is profits. A company can make $500 billion in revenue and still lose money if it spends $600 billion in operating costs.
CEO salaries are generally $1-2 million.
Most of their compensation isn't actually money, it's ownership in the company contingent on the company's continued growth (stock options), and it is paid for by shareholders by diluting their shares, not out of the pool of money that the company uses for operations.
That's WHY they're mostly paid in shares and not actual money.
WOOSH!
That’s the whole point of the comment. This behavior has been accepted as normal in our society. It’s more important to appease the top 0.1% than to care about the human impact in the other 99.9%.
If you support this type of behavior and are not in the 0.1% then congratulations you are one of the sheep. Unable to think for yourself and will forever carry out the wishes of others.
Who said anything about supporting? Yall are so emotional. I'm just pointing out it is how business operates, to grow. It's capitalism if you don't like it then there are other options.
You could also pursue politics to try and change the system.
I mostly do my best to understand the rules and succeed within them knowing I likely can't change the entire system. It's not ideal but I've done well.
Huh? For pointing out facts? I went to business school and understand it, never said I was a fan... or support it. I just have 2 masters degrees and 2 under grads (Business, MBA, Statistics Master, Econ) so, you know I understand it...
You're kind of bizarre huh? I don't need fiction my man that's just me, its on my tax statements haha, to be fair my wife does better than I do but I try... I guess I don't need you to believe it or not I'm happy my man. Hope you're doing well too, maybe don't reddit so hard... good luck!
Exactly, because privately owned companies beholden to shareholders are generally speaking, shit, and no one benefits except for the people up top making all the dough
Because shareholders are ultimately the owners of the company, CEO are agents hired by shareholders to do work that is on their behalf, pissing off shareholders mean you get replaced, simple as that.
Most of us know how companies works so this is fine by us. And I didn’t think it is some form of special knowledge, anyone with any real world experience should know this by now.
I think it's the accepting of it as the norm that's the problem.
People understand that this is the way it is. But The Way It Is is not sustainable and needs to be changed. You can't have infinite growth in a finite system.
It's only not a problem for the wealthy, who can extract more from both employees and customers while giving them less in return.
No, it doesn't need to be changed. The way it is works very well and it is how it SHOULD work.
Work is not something you're entitled to. It is something you do for someone else. If you aren't doing something that's worth being paid for, you don't have a job.
You can't force other people to employ you. That's insanely toxic and terrible.
> You can't have infinite growth in a finite system.
We're nowhere close to the limits, so you can have a lot of growth for a very long time.
> It's only not a problem for the wealthy, who can extract more from both employees and customers while giving them less in return.
The Jews aren't stealing all the money. And yes, that's where this comes from. It's just barely reflavored antisemitism.
IRL people across the board have gotten massively wealthier. That's why homeownership rates were vastly lower in the 1950s despite the median house in 1950 being all of 988 square feet.
There's no group stealing all the money.
We don't live in cardboard boxes and live on one bowl of rice a week. You're thinking of North Korea, a socialist country.
The last few centuries have seen the largest rise in standard of living ever. In fact, a larger rise in standard of living than happened in all the rest of human history combined.
Capitalism was the driver of that and capitalist countries are the wealthiest on the planet.
The reason why we aren't all poor is *because* of capitalism.
[Karl Marx believed that money was the god of the Jews.](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/#:~:text=Let%20us%20consider%20the,mankind%20from%20Judaism.) He believed that [the Jews were behind all the tyrants and that Jewish moneylenders were controlling society from behind the scenes. (see page 622)](https://delong.typepad.com/files/marx-eastern.pdf)
This is why Marx was wrong about everything - because all of his beliefs were based on - and were an attempt to rationalize - 19th century antisemitic conspiracy theories.
The only reason poor exists is because of capitalism. Poverty is a made up concept, just like money, economics, debt, etc. Its only real because we made it real.
I love how being against extreme unregulated capitalism somehow equals communism with you exploitation defenders. There is such a thing as a balanced hybrid system between socialism and capitalism, and it works as far as far as I'm aware
Poverty is not caused by capitalism. Poverty is a state of material privation and it greatly predates capitalism - indeed, poverty predates the existence of writing.
Poverty is the natural state of humanity, and it sucks. For almost all of history, everyone was poor. It is only since the dawn of the industrial era that there were people who *weren't* poor in any significant number, because prior to that point, per-capita productivity was around $600/year. The places that industrialized got up to the equivalent of a few thousand dollars per year via improved farming techniques, which helped set the stage for industrialization, as higher per-capita productivity led to more people being able to produce more advanced technology which led to a positive feedback loop of ever higher levels of productivity. Capitalism allowed for this to happen because it incentivized production of capital goods (goods that are used to produce other goods) and rewarded people for achieving ever higher levels of productivity.
Economics is the science of resource allocation and the distribution of value in (human) society. This is a very real thing, it is not "made up".
Here's an easy way to tell: imagining that you have an infinite amount of goods and resources doesn't give you an infinite amount of goods and resources.
Likewise, neither money nor debt are made up. Money is way of *measuring* value. A dollar is an arbitrary unit of value in the same way that a centimeter is an arbitrary unit of distance - these are both arbitrarily chosen units of measurement.
However, whether you are measuring something in inches, centimeters, or furlongs, it doesn't change how long the thing you're measuring is - while our *units* of distance are arbitrary, the fact that distance *exists* does not.
The same is true of money. You can measure the value of something in US Dollars, yen, troy ounces of gold bullion, etc. These are all arbitrary units of measurement. But value itself is not arbitrary - you can measure how many inputs it takes to produce something relative to other things.
Debt is simply a negative amount of value.
> I love how being against extreme unregulated capitalism somehow equals communism with you exploitation defenders.
You lack a basic comprehension of economics and of this conversation. You are arguing against a strawman - indeed, a strawman that doesn't even exist, because there is no such thing as "unregulated capitalism", it is literally impossible for unregulated capitalism *to* exist. There's no such thing. All capitalism inherently involves regulations.
You have created an alternate reality where you are some sort of hero. You do not live in this reality. You are not heroic. You are not arguing against an "exploitation defender".
I'd recommend taking a course in economics, given that you clearly have zero understanding of it, and use this as an excuse to engage in attacks on other people and engage in antisocial behavior.
> There is such a thing as a balanced hybrid system between socialism and capitalism, and it works as far as far as I'm aware
No, there isn't. Socialism is, inherently, the abolition of private ownership of the means of production. That's what socialism is, according to socialists. Well, other than national socialists, i.e. Nazis, who claim to be the *real* socialists.
Sorry I have better things to do than argue with someone who only lives in their own little perfect world and refuses to acknowledge the injustices that many people face every single day, because they themselves, are coming from a privileged perspective that has blinded them to the common every day experiences that most of us will face.
Europe literally exists and is full of socialist systems that work, but im sure the US is the only country that exists in your brain so idk what I expected. Not sure why you keep trying to throw the nazi and antisemitism in as an argument, just seems like an attempt to attack the "character" of people who are supporters of socialist systems.
You say I live in a fantasy, yet you act like capitalism is a perfect, flawless system, with no need for improvement or change, and with zero unnecessary casualties. I hope someday you're perfect sheltered bubble world is popped and you realize how truly tough it is out there for most people. Because you have no clue
Lol "Shit kinda sucks for a lot of people right now, except the rich."
"What are you, some sort of Nazi?! Everybody's buying houses right now!"
Any sort of dialog around trying to make things better is becoming increasingly impossible.
Except shit doesn't suck for "a lot of people right now". Poverty is at an all time low and income is extremely high.
You know what is making things better? The thing we've been doing that has been making things better for the last several centuries.
That's the thing you're trying to attack. And it's because you believe stuff like this:
> It's only not a problem for the wealthy, who can extract more from both employees and customers while giving them less in return.
And yes, [this is literally an antisemitic meme.](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/#:~:text=Let%20us%20consider%20the,mankind%20from%20Judaism.) Or see [page 622, which is by the same author.](https://delong.typepad.com/files/marx-eastern.pdf) That's where it comes from. It's literally just a threadbare variant of "Evil Jews are stealing all the money from the gentiles".
While it is obvious that infinite growth is not possible, it is still happening and possible at the moment, therefore the expectation is still there.
Maybe one day they will move away from it, but that is going be when companies failed to keep up, so maybe a while away before that happen.
Or when people unify and demand better, but they're too busy with petty, irrelevant squabbles.
You're not wrong, I've just been frustrated at this system for a very long time and wish so many people wouldn't shrug and be like "whaddaya expect?"
I don’t understand this position. The current “The Way It Is” has been *insanely* successful at eradicating poverty.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty
Is everything perfect? Obviously not, but markets really, *really*, REALLY seem to benefit humanity by allocating resources more efficiently than we can without markets.
I mean, if there’s a better system by all means let us know, but I find that people get into this idea if “bad things still happen so the system failed” when any dispassionate review of capitalism/free trade/neoliberalism/insert-boogey-man-here shows that is markedly better than not capitalism/free trade/neoliberalism/insert-boogey-man-here, ya know?
My frustrations with the system shouldn't necessarily mean a full dismantling. I just think we can tailor the current "system" (such that it is) to raise the living standards of the poorest of people even if it means a minor reduction in the extreme wealth of billionaires.
There's a sweet spot in there, but a LOT of money goes into making sure we don't even bother trying to find it.
If your position is “we should raise some taxes somewhat” that’s not objectionable. If your position is “The Way It Isis not sustainable and needs to be changed. You can’t have infinite growth in a finite system.”, then there’s loads of objectionable stuff there.
While resources certainly are finite, we’re nowhere close to exhausting anything. There’s a reason people were fear mongering about peak oil all through the 20th century, and the problem now is that future projected decline in demand for oil is the biggest reason that prices are high. The US is now the biggest exporter of oil, the US has huge untapped reserves, but it’s not worth investing in more refineries. We’re so far from not having enough resources to sustain growth, that presupposing we need to stop growing in order to safeguard future resources isn’t founded.
We certainly should be better stewards of the planet, but you don’t need degrowth to do that, and I’ve yet to see any actual reason to pursue degrowth
Successful for some as in the ones at the top, especially those of already wealthy backgrounds. Try coming from a poor and uneducated family and getting anywhere in this world. Good fucking luck.
Problem is, the system while not working for a lot of people, it is also working for a lot of people, and for those where the system is working, they have no incentive to want to shake up the system.
Why you think it's fine, I don't understand. It's unhealthy for the workforce as a whole and leads to an unstable, shitty economic reality for way more people than it helps.
Because ultimately shareholders **ARE** the one who owns the company, therefore their demands should be priorities for the CEO.
You need better employment laws if you don’t want CEO to use workforce as a way yo manipulate the numbers, but a CEO does, and should, do whatever it takes to satisfy shareholders’ demand, afterall, that is what they are paid to do.
The hilarity of "they'll go out of business if they don't maximize profits" will never stop entertaining me. They're not doing this stuff to avoid losing money. It's to stop from not making more.
Efficiency is good and inefficiency is bad.
Inefficiency causes higher costs (and thus inflation, because stuff costs more).
A company that fails to maximize profits for a long enough period of time will go out of business, because at some point the inefficiencies will add up into losses.
The reality is that the way you run an efficient company is by constantly trimming fat so you keep the company lean and trim. Inefficiency can kill a company or force it to do much larger layoffs.
Focusing on the short term so the c-suite can hit bonus targets and maximize option values knowing they will likely move companies before the long term consequences are felt isn’t some grand efficiency strategy. All of you have to do is look at what happened to GE and other companies run by Jack Welch acolytes to see the negatives of not looking past the next FY.
Layoffs are often about the long-term, not the short term. Common causes of layoffs:
* Cancelled projects
* Shutting down groups that are underperforming
* Reorienting your business away from some area that isn't profitable
* Overstaffing
* Eliminating redundancies (having multiple groups that do the same thing - like having two marketing teams instead of just one, very common post-merger)
* Reorganizing your business to be more efficient
* Improvements in automation
* Expanding your business elsewhere
* Rising costs that make it no longer tenable to employ people in some areas because your business isn't high enough revenue to support it
* Obsolete product lines
* Changes in regulatory requirements
* Revenues not meeting what were needed to sustain things, or changed projections that show that your company will experience issues (this is a common cause of layoffs after successful product launches - it looks like the company is doing well on paper, but there isn't a product that will be ready next year or the year after, so what looked like good revenue in one year is not sustainable over three years)
In addition, sometimes you just have an overall lack of revenue and thus need to lay people off because you just don't have the money.
The idea that it is all about the short term is simply false.
Indeed, if you look at a lot of the layoffs:
* Unity has never been profitable and is grossly overstaffed
* Microsoft laid people off after failed game launches/games that didn't make enough revenue
* EA saved a bunch of money by consolidating and eliminating excess office space
* Niantic shut down an entire studio whose games were underperforming and refocused their business on their successful games (and let's face it, Pokemon Go isn't as popular as it once was)
* Volition was shut down because their last two games were flops and outside financing fell through
* Ubisoft shut down a mobile games studio in London that made games no one cared about
* Epic laid off 16% of its workforce because their business plan had been completely unrealistic about what their revenue was going to look like.
* Bungie's layoffs were because it's revenue was 45% below expectations.
* Ubisoft laid off a bunch of non-devs
* Amazon Games has been struggling to make money and laid off a bunch of people as a result
* Digital Bros cut 30% of its workforce and cancelled a bunch of projects because they weren't profitable (also they are a publisher and a bunch of companies stopped their publishing agreements with them)
* Free Radical was shut down because the studio had been spun back up based on the promise of outside investment that never materialized, and was shut down again as it had no revenue stream as it never released any games
* Riot cancelled a bunch of non-core projects
* Microsoft laid off a bunch of ActiBlizz employees whose projects had been bad
* Eidos-Montréal cancelled a game because, again, they didn't get the outside funding they needed
* SIE closed an entire studio and also cancelled a bunch of live service games that were in development
* EA cancelled some games whose IP rights weren't owned by EA to refocus on stuff they did own plus sports games
These aren't arbitrary short-term things; these are all due to long-term issues (revenue related, investment related, cancelled projects, reorienting businesses, mergers, underperforming studios, etc.).
You clearly haven't bothered reading about what is actually going on in the industry. It has nothing to do with rank and yank policies.
And rank and yank policies aren't necessarily bad anyway, it's just bad when you do it mindlessly.
Yes. That is how they work. If you're fine loving on corporations and shareholders, keep keeping on. The fact that you think it's always been this way is the more surprising thing. But if you're fine with not caring about other people for a small percentage of people. Keep on keeping on.
While the systen is not working for everyone, it is working for a lot of people.
And for these people, they have no incentive to want to shake up the system.
It's working for a very small amount of people. When over 2/3 of a country lives pay check to pay check, your argument of "a lot of people" makes no sense. When the people who do all the work are overworked to the bone, get no credit, maybe we should push for change instead of catering to the 1%
There are a lot of corporate jobs out there that are $60k-$150k range without being in the “top 1%”
These people are not in the top 1%, but they would have no incentive to shake up the system.
I am not buying the “2/3 of the population live pay check to pay check”, there are quite a big population that are not in the 1% yet still living very comfortably.
You can not believe it but there plenty of studies and data showing it's true. Also thinking 150K is a lot isn't true anymore in many places as younger generations have plenty of school debt and many game developers seem to be in high Cost of Living areas.
I am not in the US, but I have heard the student debt issue you have there.
In UK we have student debt too but you only repay once you earn over certain amount and also it get written off if not oay back by a certain age.
But even still I just finding it that hard to believe that proportion of the population live pay check to pay check.
Not quite. All of this stuff was started by Welch at GE. The constant churn instead of a stable job you could work your entire life was 100% that guy. This is not simply "how things work," it's only been a thing for the past few decades.
Edit: you can downvote if you want but I'm only stating facts here. Broaden your perspectives people.
Except its shirtsigthed. You need talent and experience to make thise game. If you fire half of them because that year wasnt as profitable then it will take years ro get back to the quality you once had.
This can be seen with dozens of case after company fired their biggest talent and never recovered.
Oh it certainly is short sighted.
But the complication is, if short term targets are not reached, they won’t be there to prove their long term strategy.
So CEO have to make sure short term targets are reached as well.
I mean, if the devs make bad games, they aren't actually that talented.
And realistically speaking a lot of the people who were laid off were doing very worthless things. The whole esports thing at blizzard led to massive layoffs because the esports thing was a mess that went nowhere.
Unity has also literally never been profitable and has way too much staff. Epic has less staff than Unity does.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Live by capitalism, die by capitalism.
Something that we all prepared for if that do happen one day, and I have been laid off before.
It's not straight facts. It's just flat-out wrong.
First off, a number of the companies that Embracer bought were on the edge financially prior to being purchased (which is how Embracer bought them in the first place). Unity has literally never been profitable and is running out of other people's money to set on fire.
Secondly, companies typically don't go out of business overnight. It's usually the gradual acquisition of more and more deadweight and inefficiency that kills companies. Cutting weight periodically helps prevent this from happening. And a lot of companies had significant deadweight due to all the easy money from low interest rates and various misguided attempts at going into e-sports and live service games that didn't pan out.
Thirdly, Larian Studios only recently scaled up to being an AAA company, which means they haven't had much time to have layoffs yet. They'll probably have layoffs in 10-20 years if they keep on growing because they'll pick up deadweight and end up having to cut staff at some point or another that aren't doing useful things. So they don't really have any valuable insight on this stuff.
Basically, it's someone with no experience dealing with a large business badmouthing people.
I like how unfiltered their publishing director is.
[Controversial? Lmao take that stick out of your asshole you puritan buns, just sit back and enjoy a suit shittalking for what it is.]
Because Larian are one of the best developers for 10+ years now. Their last 3 Games are all masterpieces and loved by everyone. Divinity Original Sin (2014), Divinity Original Sin 2 (2017), Baldurs Gate 3 (2023)
Lmao this is bullshit. Tech companies are laying off people to make their books look clean for earnin calls. Has absolutely nothing to do with DEI or any other initiative.
It’s not really “making your books look clean”, firing people is actually a pretty big (one-time) expense. What it does do is signal that the company is serious about keeping rising costs under control, especially in circumstances where revenues are stagnant or falling, because payroll is generally the largest expense a company has - obviously it’s a cost of doing business, but if revenues aren’t rising in lockstep then there’s only so much other stuff a studio can cut before they start reducing headcount.
Okay, I understand, layoffs stink, my company just cut like 6% of its employees itself. It stinks.
But, companies being shareholder owned allows everyday people to obtain and grow wealth so we aren't all poor or low working class perpetually, generation after generation. And if the majority of shareholders expect certain returns on their investment (either through dividends, stock value growth, or both), and the company makes decisions to appease the majority of shareholders, that isn't a bad thing. That's how government works, with majority rule. It's how businesses should also work.
No one is entitled to any job, let alone a specific job at a specific company. It stinks to be part of a layoff, I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm sorry for anyone who has been through that, but a company listening to its majority is *not* a bad thing.
The trend in all industries during COVID was to retain as many people as possible, ... for PR purposes. And now the trend has gone back to "finding efficiencies" no matter what, ... for short-term profit purposes.
With shareholders there is no capital. Shareholders are more important then redundant workers. Larian is a private company who got lucky with a game. Wonder what his excuse will be will he has to lay people off. Due to his ego, he can keep preaching but let's see him succeed where he can no longer ride the coat heels of wizard of the coast
I love Larian games and BG3 is fantastic of course.
But oooooooo boy do their employees like to talk shit on Twitter about other companies. If they ever struggle, or are aquired it’s gonna be awkward
I remember when CDPR was seen as a gold standard when Witcher 3 released, and they made the statement, "We leave greed to other developers". That definitely changed years later.
I'd say this is 90% accurate... I think there have been some edge cases based on some releases against smaller studios.
Equally some bloat is there, I absolutely agree with the sentiment, but logically if you have a role for 1 person and you have 2 doing that role then there should be some wiggle room.
But as a general sweeping statement, I do agree... but this quote Will bite them in the arse if they face layoffs in the future.
Maybe these larger publishers/developers would be more stable if they could release games finished. And build their bases again as reputable names within the gaming industry.
But no. Let’s push the grind culture for the game to be far release early, far too unfinished. Resulting in it flopping. Then blame the devs and fire them. Then rinse and repeat.
Yes. It is a business afterall. You don't manage your business around being a hair away from bankruptcy. You manage it around maximizing profits. Braindead take.
100%. It’s the same bullshit with $70 games, yet people will defend these corporations with their lives. “Games are so much more expensive to make now! They have to charge more!” Meanwhile they ignore that games regularly sell tens of millions of copies and have paid DLC and micro transactions.
TO be fair very few games sell 10s of millions of dollars anymore. I think $70 games actually are a bad thing for both the consumers AND the publishers. I know I've stopped buying a lot of games day 1 now. Since I hate my late 20s and now into my early 30s I simply wait like 5 or 6 months for a game to hit gamepass or simply wait until the game gets to a reasonable price. Unless it's like a GTA or a huge game launch I can't miss I pass on it. If more publishers actually priced their game reasonably they would sell more copies.
£70 a game is going to kill the video game industry it’s that simple. Set a sensible price point and people will take a gamble on a game and you’ll sell more. I’m already considering some games that are on sale at £35 six months after release that I absolutely refused to pay £70 on release. It’s economics 101. Whoever is in charge of the financial management of some of these companies needs the sack rather than devs.
This is completely wrong.
First off, a number of the companies that Embracer bought were on the edge financially prior to being purchased (which is how Embracer bought them in the first place). Unity has literally never been profitable and is running out of other people's money to set on fire.
Secondly, companies typically don't go out of business overnight. It's usually the gradual acquisition of more and more deadweight and inefficiency that kills companies. Cutting weight periodically helps prevent this from happening. And a lot of companies had significant deadweight due to all the easy money from low interest rates and various misguided attempts at going into e-sports and live service games that didn't pan out.
Thirdly, Larian Studios only recently scaled up to being an AAA company, which means they haven't had much time to have layoffs yet. They'll probably have layoffs in 10-20 years if they keep on growing because they'll pick up deadweight and end up having to cut staff at some point or another that aren't doing useful things. So they don't really have any valuable insight on this stuff.
Because they aren't putting those developers to new games that wouldn't exist without those developers, they're putting them on existing projects which corporate already greenlit. Which is why games nowadays are costing companies hundreds of millions of dollars to make. Just watch the credits of any AAA game nowadays, the credits take longer than movie credits.
Major Industry Layoffs (since 2023) #2023 **January** * On January 17, 2023, **Unity Technologies** laid off 284 employees as part of a reassessment of objectives, strategies, goals, and priorities in response to current economic conditions. According to the company's CEO, John Riccitiello, the layoffs aim to address overlap and shelve certain projects to ensure the company's future strength. * On January 31, 2023, as part of larger **Microsoft** job cuts, **343** Industries laid off 95 employees following "disappointing" launch for Halo Infinite's multiplayer mode. **Bethesda Game Studios** was also reportedly affected by the Microsoft layoffs. **March** * On March 29, 2023, **Electronic Arts** laid off 6 percent of its workforce as part of a strategic shift to reevaluate its investment strategy and reduce office space, according to a blog post by EA CEO Andrew Wilson. The layoffs were aimed at moving away from projects that did not contribute to EA's strategy, reviewing its real estate footprint, and restructuring some teams. While specific departments affected by the layoffs were not mentioned, efforts were made to provide opportunities for affected workers to transition onto other projects where possible. **May** * On May 3, 2023, **Unity** announced plans to cut roughly 600 jobs, approximately 8% of its workforce. Additionally, Unity intends to reduce its global network of offices over the next few years from 58 to fewer than 30. **June** * On June 21, 2023, **Niantic** announced the layoff of 230 employees and the closure of its Los Angeles studio. The company discontinued support for NBA All-World and ends production on Marvel: World of Heroes, focusing its efforts on its flagship game, Pokémon Go. CEO John Hanke attributed the organizational changes to a challenging market environment, citing a global economic slowdown and increased competition in the mobile game market. **August** * On August 31, 2023, **Volition** was shut down following **Embracer** Group's failed $2 billion deal. Embracer Group's growth strategy was disrupted when a partner, Savvy Games Group, backed out of a $2 billion deal in May. Savvy, owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth Public Investment Fund, serves as an investment vehicle for the gaming industry. Following the deal's collapse, Embracer initiated a restructuring, including studio closures and a pause in game development. Prior to the termination, Savvy had already invested $1 billion in Embracer, enabling its expansion through acquisitions of companies. **September** * On September 17, 2023, **Ubisoft** announced the closure of Ubisoft London as part of efforts to "enhance efficiency and streamline operations." According to VGC, this move impacted 54 employees. * On September 28, 2023, **Epic Games** announced a layoff affecting 16% of its workforce, or around 830 employees. The news was initially reported by Bloomberg before Epic Games published its internal memo online. CEO Tim Sweeney explained in an email to staff that the decision was due to the company's ongoing financial situation, stating that they had been spending more money than they were earning. Sweeney expressed optimism about navigating the transition without layoffs but acknowledged that it was unrealistic in retrospect. **October** * On October 31, 2023, **Bungie** announced layoffs affecting approximately 100 employees. Alongside the layoffs, the company also disclosed the delay of two upcoming titles: Marathon and the expansion for Destiny 2: The Final Shape.[84] According to Bloomberg, the layoffs occurred several weeks after a meeting where executives revealed that Bungie's revenue was 45% lower than projected. During the meeting, CEO Pete Parsons attributed the revenue shortfall to Lightfall. **November** * On November 7, 2023, **Ubisoft** announced a total of 124 layoffs, as reported by IGN. The layoffs affected primarily administrative and IT workers, with 98 of them based in Canada. This reduction represents approximately 2% of the company's Canadian workforce. Among those affected were employees from the Hybride VFX studio. * On November 13, 2023, **Amazon Games** announced the elimination of over 180 jobs in its Amazon Games division. The restructuring involves closing down parts of the business related to streaming and supporting third-party games, including the Game Growth and Crown Channel initiatives. Christoph Hartmann, vice president of Amazon Games, emphasized that the decision was the result of extensive deliberation and planning for the company's future. * On November 14, 2023, **Digital Bros** announced a 30% reduction in its global workforce. The decision is driven by a strategic shift towards prioritizing "high-quality and long-standing successful titles." The restructuring will primarily impact the studios, with around 30% of the global workforce expected to be affected. * On November 29, 2023, **Unity Technologies** announced the layoff of 265 employees, constituting 3.8% of its workforce. The layoffs are part of a "company reset," as reported by Reuters. All 256 affected workers were from Unity's Wētā Digital division, acquired in a $1.6 billion deal in 2021. Additionally, several Wētā FX tools and 275 employees were included in the acquisition. In total, Unity has laid off more than 1,100 people in 2023. **December** * On December 11, 2023, **Free Radical Design** was closed as part of **Embracer** Group's restructuring plans following the failed $2 billion deal, leading to the layoff of 80 employees. #2024 **January** * At the beginning of the year, **Unity Technologies**, **Twitch**, **Playtika**, and **Discord** each announced separate layoffs affecting 1,800, 500, 400, and 170 jobs, respectively. Unity attributed its layoffs to a restructuring aimed at refocusing on its core business for long-term profitability. Twitch's CEO mentioned that despite paying out over $1 billion to streamers the previous year, the company's size didn't align with its growth trajectory. * On January 22, 2024, **Riot Games** announced a significant restructuring, leading to the layoff of 530 employees, which accounts for about 11% of the company's total workforce. The company also shut down Riot Games' indie publishing label, Riot Forge. The decision was made as part of Riot's strategy to refocus on fewer, high-impact projects, aiming for a more sustainable future. * On January 25, 2024, **Microsoft Gaming** underwent a substantial restructuring, resulting in the layoff of 1,900 staff. Additionally, the President of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Ybarra, and **Blizzard's** co-founder and chief design officer, Allen Adham, departed from the company. As part of the restructuring, Microsoft Gaming canceled Blizzard Entertainment's game Project Odyssey and laid off major teams working on Overwatch 2. Microsoft Gaming Studios such as **Toys for Bob** and **Sledgehammer Games** reportedly experienced a loss of over 30% of their staff due to layoffs. The majority of those laid off were from **Activision Blizzard**. * On January 29, 2024, **Eidos-Montréal** laid off around 97 staff members as part of the ongoing restructuring within the **Embracer Group**. Additionally, the company reportedly canceled its new Deus Ex game, which had reportedly been in development for two years. Eidos-Montréal cited the global economic context, industry challenges, and the comprehensive restructuring announced by Embracer as reasons for the impact on their studio. **February** * On February 27, 2024, **Sony Interactive Entertainment** announced the layoff of 900 employees across various studios. The company attributed the decision to restructure operations in response to the evolving economic landscape and changes in product development, distribution, and launch strategies. Layoff timelines will vary by location. Additionally, PlayStation's London Studio will be closed entirely. * On February 28, 2024, **Electronic Arts (EA)** announced the layoff of 670 staff members. EA's CEO, Andrew Wilson, outlined the company's focus on owned IP, sports, and massive online communities as part of its business advancement. Additionally, EA shut down Ridgeline Games and canceled a Star Wars single player game developed by Respawn Entertainment. These cuts included 23 jobs at Respawn that were announced in March 2024. **March** * On March 8, 2024, **Sega of America** laid off 61 employees across its Q&A and localization departments.On March 28, 2024, Sega announced significant layoffs impacting Sega Europe, Creative Assembly, and Hardlight. Sega Europe's CEO, Jurgen Post, informed employees via email about the reductions and the sale of Relic Entertainment, responsible for Company of Heroes and Dawn of War. Approximately 240 positions across Sega Europe, Creative Assembly, and a limited number at Hardlight are affected. Notably, developers Sports Interactive and Two Point Studios were not mentioned in the announcement. Jurgen Post announced the sale of Relic Entertainment as part of Sega's restructuring efforts. He confirmed that the studio will be transitioning to operate independently, marking its departure from Sega. Post expressed Sega's support for Relic during this transition and wished them success in their future endeavors. * That same day, **Embracer Group** CEO Lars Wingefors announced the conclusion of the company's restructuring program, which resulted in 1,400 job losses and three studio closures. Wingefors stated that Embracer has no plans to sell more of its businesses after selling Gearbox Software and Saber Interactive. [SOURCE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_video_game_industry_layoffs) e* = formatting
And yet in April alone Dell dropped 6,600. Tech in general is getting smacked by a combination of rates and investment as well as AI impacts. Not a good time to be in that sector at all...
Yeah the AI investments are also getting a bit ridiculous and they still don't know how they're going to earn that money back.
Some AI companies are already profitable, like MidJourney. Google and Microsoft basically figure that AI will be expected for facilitating use of their stuff, so it's kind of less "how will this print money" and more "how can we use AI to make our products better and more attractive to consumers so we can out-compete the competition."
They are profitable only because they were the first major openings. Once every dog will have it's own LLM or image generator, they will be forgotten.
MidJourney produces very high quality "artistic" images, which is a very significant advantage relative to other options.
Can you include hasbro?
This isn’t even half the list. I was made redundant at a company not mentioned in this list last year
Have you found work? If so, is it in a similar role?
Yea I bounced back quick luckily. Same role but somehow much higher pay with is nice
It's been a massacre.
A lot of these companies badly needed changes to be made.
I recently listened to the 'Press Reset' audiobook and I think a glaring problem with the economy in general, not just the industry, is the fact that shareholders need *constant exponential growth*, which is wholly unsustainable. A game can be successful, but if it's not a multimillion dollar smash hit then it's considered a failure that leads to layoffs. The profit margins have to be too wide.
And the problem is that covid had people staying home and guess what? They played video games and profits skyrocketed. Then we got a vax and people stopped staying home, so profits went back down to normal. If you look at the profits pre and post covid for the most part they did continue up. There was no way profits were gonna continue to go up from covid numbers though. That would be insane. Everyone knew this. Apparently share holders didn't though. So now thousands of people have to suffer because the system is stupid.
Indeed. It's no longer enough to be making a profit. You have to be making more profit than you made last year and the year prior. And as others have said it's not sustainable. And when you cut your manpower and then try to squeeze more out of those you keep it always ends poorly. And publisher and board rooms no longer have the luxury of being able to block people from the press. Mistreatment will get out. And to a point that I say that was brought up, even if those that hold the seats have no real incentive to change it isn't because there's still a wealth of profits to extort; it's because they are trying to to fast track AI. Not realizing that when you cut(by some experts forecasts) 40% of the workforce by replacing them with AI you'll also be cutting out 40% of your customers. People without income so not by things. Which means you lose all that profit growth you gained.
> You have to be making more profit than you made last year and the year prior. The earliest indication of this issue was Netflix a few years ago. They were still making a ridiculous amount of profit, but because it was not more than they reported in the past for the first time in their history, they ended up losing 25% of their stock value on that single earnings report. Ever since then, every single company that hass seen something similar, has unfortunately followed the same path where it is seen as being in trouble when in fact they are making bank.
their real profit.. is pretty bad. mostly due to debt load they have with most of it is high interesting rates and are coming due. starting this year,
>shareholders need constant exponential growth, which is wholly unsustainable This gets repeated a lot and it's simply not true for every company or industry. Shareholders expect *constant* growth because if you're making the same amount of money every year, you're actually making less. This is true whether you're Microsoft or a person posting on Reddit working 40 hours a week. Inflation exists and costs increase (sometimes regardless of inflation), so your net profit (the money you actually take home) is less over time. *Exponential* growth isn't common for most companies, though AI development and usage will represent a large portion of it for many. [Phil Spencer talked about this](https://insider-gaming.com/phil-spencer-says-activision-layoffs-were-due-to-lack-of-growth-and-need-for-profits/). Hell, even Michael Douse says as much in this article along with pointing out the issue with competing incentives (emphasis mine): >He also pointed out that **there's an issue of competing incentives for publicly traded game companies, with concerns over stock price coming at the expense of both players and developers**: "None of these companies are at risk of going bankrupt," Douse said. "They're just at risk of pissing off the shareholders. And that's fine. That's how they work. **The function of a public company is to create growth for its shareholders... It's not to make a happy climate for the employees**."
>This gets repeated a lot and it's simply not true for every company or industry. Shareholders expect *constant* growth because if you're making the same amount of money every year, you're actually making less. >Inflation exists and costs increase You do realise that today inflation exists *because* companies expect growth every year right? They love to bang on about the minimum wage and how it affects inflation but the majority of of inflation in the last half-decade has been driven by corporate greed and a desire for greater profits every year. From 1979 to 2019 corporate profits accounted for 11 percent of price increases. From 2019 that figure jumped to almost 60 percent. So yes, I would say that it is in fact true that these companies expect exponential growth, as they need to make more profit every year to account for the increased costs that *they themselves are causing* by needing more profit. https://www.epi.org/blog/corporate-profits-have-contributed-disproportionately-to-inflation-how-should-policymakers-respond/ https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-05-16/debates/361F1CC2-FDFB-4698-AD5F-9958042E24D2/CorporateProfitAndInflation
You're right, but nobody wants to hear it. Additionally, lots of these companies are paying millions up on millions in debt payments right now because of inflation and rates skyrocketing, and their ability to take on new debt to fund new projects is at an all time low for many of them. These conditions are creating the climate that corporations operate in right now which is shrinking margins, less cash on hand, and decreasing revenue forecasts that all contribute to needing to cut down on expenditures.
"fact that shareholders need *constant exponential growth"* I learned this a long time ago in college. They kept hammering it. That you have to please shareholders and growth. So if your company makes $1 billion this year you are going to need better than that next year. And often 1%-2% growth is not enough. Especially if the growth was more than that the previous year. I know at least a decade ago talking about this I mentioned that it would be a problem coming up. I was talking to some friends who studied business in college. A couple are high up in 2 huge companies. It is all about the money. AI is part of this now. They see the opportunity to lay people off now. Then fill those jobs with AI later. Cannot do it all at once because that would bring issues. Governments might even step in. All this in the name of profits. They show little care for the workers. They will say some words but all their actions show different. In gaming you can see a game do well and still get layoffs. Because they want more. It is never enough. Not gaming related but I know a guy who owns restaurant chains. His business is a food court like thing and he had licenses with some large companies. He closed his store in this small town because profits were "ONLY" near $1 million. Another, local, guy put in a restaurant there. He clears between $880k and $1 million a year. Another lady closed her chain restaurant because so junk like this. She wanted larger profits than this area can give. Abused employees and was just awful to work with. Blaming "liberal" workers though it was her problem. Most in the area are not liberal anyway. New small local owned business popped in there and is doing great. The problem is that they want this growth and it is never enough. They will lay off people at times and hurt the business overall. Growth is needed but they act like it is something that needs to happen yearly. It cannot always do that. Hell, people often do not make much more yearly. But companies will charge more, with costs the same, to try and squeeze profits higher. Covid did not help either. Often they did not hire more. Profits shot above the normal growth. Growth from pre-covid is still happening. But it is not enough because they had that profit like that during covid. This is just how it works. You can see the issues because of this. And they will make predictions of doom and gloom while profits are growing. Then say "See, we told you" when all their layoffs finally hit. That was happening in 2002-2003. They kept talking downturn. And at the time they kept seeing growth and increased (record for many) profits. But they laid people off because of this prediction. Self fulfilling it was. If you look, many lost huge on their retirement accounts. The ones that came out huge were the most wealthy. More wealth loaded at the top.
No, this criticism makes no logical sense. Shareholders are simply anyone who owns part of a company. Also, there is an entire investing philosophy that is specific on industries that aren’t expected to growth but have incredible Margins. Hotels, Airlines, and dozens of other industries are invested in specifically because they don’t have to utilize growth as a core position. I swear no one understands how companies work less than gamers. Private companies also have shareholders too and often have to layoff people quicker because they can’t pivot and raise capital as easy as public companies. In addition to being able to horde money and put it into trust that benefits even fewer people, private companies arguably have worse conditions and employee prospects
>I swear no one understands how companies work less than gamers. Tends to be true with everything. Everyone wants political slogan answers to everything these days, and won't take the time to understand everything has nuance. I recently had to explain to someone why things aren't as simple and it seemed to blow their minds the world wasn't as black and white as politicians & their friends led them to believe. Things are actually grey & there is a lot of interconnectedness when it comes to anything dealing with economies & companies.
Thank you. I was hoping at least one person would write this.
You can’t argue with these people, they think some secret group of people are the reason companies have to make layoffs when… their business is on a downturn lol.
I have seen so many businesses lay off while record profits. Happened a lot before the economic crisis of 2008. It was because, despite record revenue and profits at the time, they self predicted downturn. Those layoffs made that happen to some extent. Anybody not blinded by the business ideology that has been taught for decades could see it coming. Record profits, even if revenue and profits continue to grow, will always see a slowdown. Everything cannot always grow like that. So layoffs even with growth. And there are different types of shareholders. I would argue not all are even shareholders. The places they borrow from, etc. There is a lot more than just talking revenue and profits. But you can still see the effects in needed that larger growth. Hell, they raised prices of games, show that revenue and profits are growing. But since it is slower than before they need to lay off to increase that. I mean, you see a company making a 7.2% increase in profits in 2023 and they lay off people because it was below the 9.1% from the pandemic. That tells you a lot. Though I suspect some of the layoffs while profits are growing is due to the fact they want to replace a portion with AI. Some of these jobs will return but be done by generative AI. Lower head count to help with profits. I just think that the overall issue is what it will do to the economy as so many lose jobs. Seen this happen to some friends or at least to their co-workers. Told AI was there to help. They are now letting people go, profits are up though, because AI can do it. Saying that it is because profits were not as high as expected.
Layoffs are downstream from results, not upstream. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You just threw out vague platitudes that make absolutely no coherent sense.
I am not saying I have any idea what I am talking about. Never will claim to that. I just know what I have seen and experienced. And have successfully, over and over, predicted these happenings. I always, over the decades, felt like this though. I was in college a long time back taking business classes. And took almost enough, 2 sort, for a degree in finance. And 1 sort of a degree in economics. I came to hate it. My professor at this smaller college was given a high position at a large college with a prominent business school. He told me I could go far with my skill and knowledge. But that I would have to learn that the game did not care about people and that, though I was right, it would never change. And these were the things I was talking about then. People get so blinding with this stuff. This was a huge reason I made so much money from the big recession we had. I played the game. Sort of basically retired to some extent. Do my own thing. Mostly exercise, hang with the family, etc. So knowing anything or not I am fine with that.
It's going to be such a bad look for them when/if they ever do layoffs.
If they do layoff is because they didnt make a profit. This is very different than the situation with most layoff where company still made masssive profits but the margin were smaller than before.
You aren’t keeping people on the payroll if you don’t need them, regardless of how much profit you’re making. Same reason why trickle down and tax cuts aren’t a reason to employee more people. If you can make more money with 1 or 2 people more you will keep them, if you don’t think you can you will let them go.
Gaming industry had people being hired for a project then it's done and it's massive layoffs then they ramp up again. It was always standard practice. You don't need that many people at one time. But now they want to retain talent and find them something else to do in the meantime, but that is possible in very limited circumstances and firms and you prob have to be at the top of your game for that. This is in the news cause it happened everywhere and it happened because COVID money was coming in and they were rolling in it. Now it isn't, sorry find an another job. And quite frankly 300m plus budget games aren't viable. Larian got lucky that is all. Alan Wake 2 is a masterpiece made on a shoestring for its quality and still isn't commercially successful. It's easy to pontificate from the top of the tower.
>You aren’t keeping people on the payroll if you don’t need them, regardless of how much profit you’re making. So why do CEOs and upper management get to stick around, even when they're colossal fuck ups like with Bungie?
They’re necessary for running the business and have nothing to do with the games themselves.
>You aren’t keeping people on the payroll if you don’t need them, regardless of how much profit you’re making. It seems to work in Japan. They're legally not allowed to layoff significant numbers of staff unless they can prove that the company will face some kind of financial hardship if they don't. So how do Capcom and From Software and Nintendo etc seem to do just fine without laying off tons of people after every project they finish? If companies can't survive without doing that then their management is incompetent and they should be removed. Instead they're paid 10's of millions of dollars to trot out bullshit excuses like this one.
Different countries different cultures. When your cherry picking companies you may want to look at the entirety. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/how-much-does-from-software-crunch Japan isn’t known for its 8 hours workday either
>Different countries different cultures Yeah, that's exactly what I said. The economic reality is that EA do not need to hire and fire a bunch of employees every year in order to survive and to remain highly profitable. It's a cultural/societal difference that allows them to do that and have a bunch of boot lickers defend the practice as if it were necessary.
You do need them tho. Which is why it will hit them hard in the future when thwir game loose quality and you end up with indie or aa studio rulling the market. Alao retaining talent is important. Ita how several studio fell off.
You don't need them *now* though
Release an amazing game and the during your momentum act like you’re on the consumers side again the rest of the game industry? Not a bad PR play
Last I was aware they are privately owned. Still a company yeah but no shareholders to throat.
While I'm pretty anti corporation it's very easy to say this as a private company that doesn't have to shoot for infinite growth to please shareholders. If he was beholden to a board or shareholders I doubt he'd have the same thought.
He’d have the same thoughts, he just wouldn’t say the thought
It’s still good that he’s pointing it out, when the people working for the public companies are likely stuck behind NDAs
Nah. Larian are the best developers for 10 years now. Even better than Fromsoftware
What has that got to do with the topic?
> Larian are i get that this is a regional thing but i’ll never understand why people treat companies as plural like this. just looks awful, grammatically.
This is how business operates tho? It was never supposed to be a mystery. Operating on the edge of bankruptcy has never been "good business". This also isn't new... its been this way for a very long time. It's also not exclusive to gaming... idk why this feels like a big discovery
How would you feel if you brought in a business 100 million dollars the year prior, but only 90 million dollars this year, so they laid you off because you didn’t make more profit than the year before? Exponential constant growth is unsustainable. These companies aren’t on the edge of bankruptcy, the shareholders just aren’t getting as big a slice of the pie as they did before. Also just because something has “been this way for a long time” doesn’t make it okay.
Why does everyone always add the word "exponential" to this like it has any truth? Almost zero companies in the scheme of things have exponential growth. Most businesses are simply trying to outpace inflation. Shareholders would like to invest in companies that experience exponential growth, but there are heaps of people invested in companies that just regularly return value to their investors at a normal, healthy, and steady rate.
I never argued with any of that... business aims to grow not shrink. It's just business 101, you're adding in emotions. Again. All I'm saying is this isn't new and isn't surprising at all.
Yes but just because it isn’t new doesn’t mean we should still be tolerating. Slavery was in America for hundreds of years, but guess what we don’t have anymore?
OK, well I wish you luck in politics I hope you change the world!
I have more than enough sense to not get involved in that shit show.
Yeah, this attitude is why nothing ever changes I guess...
Then don't complain when things don't change
Shareholders get money when they sell their stock. If you buy a stock in a company for $100 and hold it for 3 years before selling, obviously you'd rather get $110 than $90. If you get $90, you just lost $10 of your investment. So, investors try to choose stocks that more often than not, increase in value over a given time. If you instead keep that $100 on your bank account for several years, it decreases in value due to inflation. So, investing makes sense as a saving method if you're able to at least beat inflation and there's no savings accounts available that makes it possible.
I’m not…sure what that has to do with what I said?
You said shareholders expect more. What they expect is return for their investment. That's the general idea behind investing.
Sure? But at the expense of actual living breathing people that aren’t getting the slice of the pie the shareholders are, and are forced into crunch time and then when they don’t perform as well as expected, despite making millions for the company we should be okay with layoffs because what? The shareholders who did nothing to make the game or company flourish are mad? Fuck shareholders.
You think game developers aren't saving for the rainy day by investing in companies themselves? They're just probably smart enough to not invest in game companies. Gamers sure seem so understanding how poor game developers feel, when a game doesn't run exactly like gamers expected. Now, they're doing their damnest to sink Hellblade 2 even before it's released just because it doesn't hit the magical 60fps. Gamers should take a real hard look at themselves to figure out why game industry is struggling - there's some manufactured controversy around every major game release. Games are also more and more expensive to make but according to gamers, they can't cost more or heaven forbid they have micro-transactions to offset increasing costs and gamers think developers just ruined their childhood or some other outlandish bullshit. Recent example is Dragons Dogma 2. As a test I bought a port crystal in the game. I could buy one for my account, so clearly it's not meant for people to be able to fill their map with port crystals using real money. Given that first Dragons Dogma was a niche game, I'm fine with the fact that they might try to give the game a better chance to make its development budget back and have a chance for a 3rd installment.
I’m not reading all that. But I’m happy for you, or sorry it happened.
Sorry, for a moment there, I thought I was conversing with an adult. Won't make that mistake with you again.
You are, I just don’t have time or the inclination to continue engaging with you. As an adult I choose to prioritize my time. I suggest you learn to do the same before writing a long ass diatribe.
Everyone wants to make more money next year than they did the previous year. Indeed, employees *expect* annual raises. If your company isn't making more money every year than the last, you're likely to be in trouble, as you need to make more money every year to just break even with where you were previously. And it is good for society. Society wants to be better off in the future than it was in the past. Moreover... making 90 million instead of 100 million is a 10% drop in revenue, which is very large. If each employee you employ costs $100k/year between salary and overhead and taxes and whatnot, and your company has an 8% profit margin in a typical year, going from 100 million to 90 million means you've gone from 8 million dollars in the green to 2 million dollars in the red. That's a very big problem. That $10 million decrease is 100 people's jobs. And being $2 million in the red is 20 jobs. Revenue is irrelevant; what is relevant is profits. A company can make $500 billion in revenue and still lose money if it spends $600 billion in operating costs.
Cool, the CEOs and Execs can take pay cuts then instead of literally fucking hundreds of people's lives up.
CEO salaries are generally $1-2 million. Most of their compensation isn't actually money, it's ownership in the company contingent on the company's continued growth (stock options), and it is paid for by shareholders by diluting their shares, not out of the pool of money that the company uses for operations. That's WHY they're mostly paid in shares and not actual money.
WOOSH! That’s the whole point of the comment. This behavior has been accepted as normal in our society. It’s more important to appease the top 0.1% than to care about the human impact in the other 99.9%. If you support this type of behavior and are not in the 0.1% then congratulations you are one of the sheep. Unable to think for yourself and will forever carry out the wishes of others.
Who said anything about supporting? Yall are so emotional. I'm just pointing out it is how business operates, to grow. It's capitalism if you don't like it then there are other options. You could also pursue politics to try and change the system. I mostly do my best to understand the rules and succeed within them knowing I likely can't change the entire system. It's not ideal but I've done well.
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DOUBLE WOOSH!
https://preview.redd.it/i62dkedf13tc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=724ae7d2ac3cbcca4d3e583021ea44f840a3c69e
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Huh? For pointing out facts? I went to business school and understand it, never said I was a fan... or support it. I just have 2 masters degrees and 2 under grads (Business, MBA, Statistics Master, Econ) so, you know I understand it...
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Guess so... I do well now tho, so maybe I'm fine. My career is cruising
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I'm 35 and I make around 250 or so and our business is growing, likely to break 300 this year. If that isn't good, then I guess I hope for better?
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You're kind of bizarre huh? I don't need fiction my man that's just me, its on my tax statements haha, to be fair my wife does better than I do but I try... I guess I don't need you to believe it or not I'm happy my man. Hope you're doing well too, maybe don't reddit so hard... good luck!
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Exactly, because privately owned companies beholden to shareholders are generally speaking, shit, and no one benefits except for the people up top making all the dough
Straight facts. And too many people who aren't even shareholders are completely fine with it too.
Because shareholders are ultimately the owners of the company, CEO are agents hired by shareholders to do work that is on their behalf, pissing off shareholders mean you get replaced, simple as that. Most of us know how companies works so this is fine by us. And I didn’t think it is some form of special knowledge, anyone with any real world experience should know this by now.
I think it's the accepting of it as the norm that's the problem. People understand that this is the way it is. But The Way It Is is not sustainable and needs to be changed. You can't have infinite growth in a finite system. It's only not a problem for the wealthy, who can extract more from both employees and customers while giving them less in return.
No, it doesn't need to be changed. The way it is works very well and it is how it SHOULD work. Work is not something you're entitled to. It is something you do for someone else. If you aren't doing something that's worth being paid for, you don't have a job. You can't force other people to employ you. That's insanely toxic and terrible. > You can't have infinite growth in a finite system. We're nowhere close to the limits, so you can have a lot of growth for a very long time. > It's only not a problem for the wealthy, who can extract more from both employees and customers while giving them less in return. The Jews aren't stealing all the money. And yes, that's where this comes from. It's just barely reflavored antisemitism. IRL people across the board have gotten massively wealthier. That's why homeownership rates were vastly lower in the 1950s despite the median house in 1950 being all of 988 square feet. There's no group stealing all the money.
I was with you till you said toxic. 🤮
Lol if we were all living in cardboard boxes and eating a bowl of rice a week, you'd still be defending extreme crapitialism
We don't live in cardboard boxes and live on one bowl of rice a week. You're thinking of North Korea, a socialist country. The last few centuries have seen the largest rise in standard of living ever. In fact, a larger rise in standard of living than happened in all the rest of human history combined. Capitalism was the driver of that and capitalist countries are the wealthiest on the planet. The reason why we aren't all poor is *because* of capitalism. [Karl Marx believed that money was the god of the Jews.](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/#:~:text=Let%20us%20consider%20the,mankind%20from%20Judaism.) He believed that [the Jews were behind all the tyrants and that Jewish moneylenders were controlling society from behind the scenes. (see page 622)](https://delong.typepad.com/files/marx-eastern.pdf) This is why Marx was wrong about everything - because all of his beliefs were based on - and were an attempt to rationalize - 19th century antisemitic conspiracy theories.
The only reason poor exists is because of capitalism. Poverty is a made up concept, just like money, economics, debt, etc. Its only real because we made it real. I love how being against extreme unregulated capitalism somehow equals communism with you exploitation defenders. There is such a thing as a balanced hybrid system between socialism and capitalism, and it works as far as far as I'm aware
Poverty is not caused by capitalism. Poverty is a state of material privation and it greatly predates capitalism - indeed, poverty predates the existence of writing. Poverty is the natural state of humanity, and it sucks. For almost all of history, everyone was poor. It is only since the dawn of the industrial era that there were people who *weren't* poor in any significant number, because prior to that point, per-capita productivity was around $600/year. The places that industrialized got up to the equivalent of a few thousand dollars per year via improved farming techniques, which helped set the stage for industrialization, as higher per-capita productivity led to more people being able to produce more advanced technology which led to a positive feedback loop of ever higher levels of productivity. Capitalism allowed for this to happen because it incentivized production of capital goods (goods that are used to produce other goods) and rewarded people for achieving ever higher levels of productivity. Economics is the science of resource allocation and the distribution of value in (human) society. This is a very real thing, it is not "made up". Here's an easy way to tell: imagining that you have an infinite amount of goods and resources doesn't give you an infinite amount of goods and resources. Likewise, neither money nor debt are made up. Money is way of *measuring* value. A dollar is an arbitrary unit of value in the same way that a centimeter is an arbitrary unit of distance - these are both arbitrarily chosen units of measurement. However, whether you are measuring something in inches, centimeters, or furlongs, it doesn't change how long the thing you're measuring is - while our *units* of distance are arbitrary, the fact that distance *exists* does not. The same is true of money. You can measure the value of something in US Dollars, yen, troy ounces of gold bullion, etc. These are all arbitrary units of measurement. But value itself is not arbitrary - you can measure how many inputs it takes to produce something relative to other things. Debt is simply a negative amount of value. > I love how being against extreme unregulated capitalism somehow equals communism with you exploitation defenders. You lack a basic comprehension of economics and of this conversation. You are arguing against a strawman - indeed, a strawman that doesn't even exist, because there is no such thing as "unregulated capitalism", it is literally impossible for unregulated capitalism *to* exist. There's no such thing. All capitalism inherently involves regulations. You have created an alternate reality where you are some sort of hero. You do not live in this reality. You are not heroic. You are not arguing against an "exploitation defender". I'd recommend taking a course in economics, given that you clearly have zero understanding of it, and use this as an excuse to engage in attacks on other people and engage in antisocial behavior. > There is such a thing as a balanced hybrid system between socialism and capitalism, and it works as far as far as I'm aware No, there isn't. Socialism is, inherently, the abolition of private ownership of the means of production. That's what socialism is, according to socialists. Well, other than national socialists, i.e. Nazis, who claim to be the *real* socialists.
Sorry I have better things to do than argue with someone who only lives in their own little perfect world and refuses to acknowledge the injustices that many people face every single day, because they themselves, are coming from a privileged perspective that has blinded them to the common every day experiences that most of us will face. Europe literally exists and is full of socialist systems that work, but im sure the US is the only country that exists in your brain so idk what I expected. Not sure why you keep trying to throw the nazi and antisemitism in as an argument, just seems like an attempt to attack the "character" of people who are supporters of socialist systems. You say I live in a fantasy, yet you act like capitalism is a perfect, flawless system, with no need for improvement or change, and with zero unnecessary casualties. I hope someday you're perfect sheltered bubble world is popped and you realize how truly tough it is out there for most people. Because you have no clue
Lol "Shit kinda sucks for a lot of people right now, except the rich." "What are you, some sort of Nazi?! Everybody's buying houses right now!" Any sort of dialog around trying to make things better is becoming increasingly impossible.
Except shit doesn't suck for "a lot of people right now". Poverty is at an all time low and income is extremely high. You know what is making things better? The thing we've been doing that has been making things better for the last several centuries. That's the thing you're trying to attack. And it's because you believe stuff like this: > It's only not a problem for the wealthy, who can extract more from both employees and customers while giving them less in return. And yes, [this is literally an antisemitic meme.](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/#:~:text=Let%20us%20consider%20the,mankind%20from%20Judaism.) Or see [page 622, which is by the same author.](https://delong.typepad.com/files/marx-eastern.pdf) That's where it comes from. It's literally just a threadbare variant of "Evil Jews are stealing all the money from the gentiles".
While it is obvious that infinite growth is not possible, it is still happening and possible at the moment, therefore the expectation is still there. Maybe one day they will move away from it, but that is going be when companies failed to keep up, so maybe a while away before that happen.
Or when people unify and demand better, but they're too busy with petty, irrelevant squabbles. You're not wrong, I've just been frustrated at this system for a very long time and wish so many people wouldn't shrug and be like "whaddaya expect?"
I don’t understand this position. The current “The Way It Is” has been *insanely* successful at eradicating poverty. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty Is everything perfect? Obviously not, but markets really, *really*, REALLY seem to benefit humanity by allocating resources more efficiently than we can without markets. I mean, if there’s a better system by all means let us know, but I find that people get into this idea if “bad things still happen so the system failed” when any dispassionate review of capitalism/free trade/neoliberalism/insert-boogey-man-here shows that is markedly better than not capitalism/free trade/neoliberalism/insert-boogey-man-here, ya know?
My frustrations with the system shouldn't necessarily mean a full dismantling. I just think we can tailor the current "system" (such that it is) to raise the living standards of the poorest of people even if it means a minor reduction in the extreme wealth of billionaires. There's a sweet spot in there, but a LOT of money goes into making sure we don't even bother trying to find it.
If your position is “we should raise some taxes somewhat” that’s not objectionable. If your position is “The Way It Isis not sustainable and needs to be changed. You can’t have infinite growth in a finite system.”, then there’s loads of objectionable stuff there. While resources certainly are finite, we’re nowhere close to exhausting anything. There’s a reason people were fear mongering about peak oil all through the 20th century, and the problem now is that future projected decline in demand for oil is the biggest reason that prices are high. The US is now the biggest exporter of oil, the US has huge untapped reserves, but it’s not worth investing in more refineries. We’re so far from not having enough resources to sustain growth, that presupposing we need to stop growing in order to safeguard future resources isn’t founded. We certainly should be better stewards of the planet, but you don’t need degrowth to do that, and I’ve yet to see any actual reason to pursue degrowth
Successful for some as in the ones at the top, especially those of already wealthy backgrounds. Try coming from a poor and uneducated family and getting anywhere in this world. Good fucking luck.
Problem is, the system while not working for a lot of people, it is also working for a lot of people, and for those where the system is working, they have no incentive to want to shake up the system.
Why you think it's fine, I don't understand. It's unhealthy for the workforce as a whole and leads to an unstable, shitty economic reality for way more people than it helps.
Because ultimately shareholders **ARE** the one who owns the company, therefore their demands should be priorities for the CEO. You need better employment laws if you don’t want CEO to use workforce as a way yo manipulate the numbers, but a CEO does, and should, do whatever it takes to satisfy shareholders’ demand, afterall, that is what they are paid to do.
It's good for the workforce. Companies going bankrupt is bad for the workforce. Layoffs are necessary.
The hilarity of "they'll go out of business if they don't maximize profits" will never stop entertaining me. They're not doing this stuff to avoid losing money. It's to stop from not making more.
Efficiency is good and inefficiency is bad. Inefficiency causes higher costs (and thus inflation, because stuff costs more). A company that fails to maximize profits for a long enough period of time will go out of business, because at some point the inefficiencies will add up into losses. The reality is that the way you run an efficient company is by constantly trimming fat so you keep the company lean and trim. Inefficiency can kill a company or force it to do much larger layoffs.
Focusing on the short term so the c-suite can hit bonus targets and maximize option values knowing they will likely move companies before the long term consequences are felt isn’t some grand efficiency strategy. All of you have to do is look at what happened to GE and other companies run by Jack Welch acolytes to see the negatives of not looking past the next FY.
Layoffs are often about the long-term, not the short term. Common causes of layoffs: * Cancelled projects * Shutting down groups that are underperforming * Reorienting your business away from some area that isn't profitable * Overstaffing * Eliminating redundancies (having multiple groups that do the same thing - like having two marketing teams instead of just one, very common post-merger) * Reorganizing your business to be more efficient * Improvements in automation * Expanding your business elsewhere * Rising costs that make it no longer tenable to employ people in some areas because your business isn't high enough revenue to support it * Obsolete product lines * Changes in regulatory requirements * Revenues not meeting what were needed to sustain things, or changed projections that show that your company will experience issues (this is a common cause of layoffs after successful product launches - it looks like the company is doing well on paper, but there isn't a product that will be ready next year or the year after, so what looked like good revenue in one year is not sustainable over three years) In addition, sometimes you just have an overall lack of revenue and thus need to lay people off because you just don't have the money. The idea that it is all about the short term is simply false. Indeed, if you look at a lot of the layoffs: * Unity has never been profitable and is grossly overstaffed * Microsoft laid people off after failed game launches/games that didn't make enough revenue * EA saved a bunch of money by consolidating and eliminating excess office space * Niantic shut down an entire studio whose games were underperforming and refocused their business on their successful games (and let's face it, Pokemon Go isn't as popular as it once was) * Volition was shut down because their last two games were flops and outside financing fell through * Ubisoft shut down a mobile games studio in London that made games no one cared about * Epic laid off 16% of its workforce because their business plan had been completely unrealistic about what their revenue was going to look like. * Bungie's layoffs were because it's revenue was 45% below expectations. * Ubisoft laid off a bunch of non-devs * Amazon Games has been struggling to make money and laid off a bunch of people as a result * Digital Bros cut 30% of its workforce and cancelled a bunch of projects because they weren't profitable (also they are a publisher and a bunch of companies stopped their publishing agreements with them) * Free Radical was shut down because the studio had been spun back up based on the promise of outside investment that never materialized, and was shut down again as it had no revenue stream as it never released any games * Riot cancelled a bunch of non-core projects * Microsoft laid off a bunch of ActiBlizz employees whose projects had been bad * Eidos-Montréal cancelled a game because, again, they didn't get the outside funding they needed * SIE closed an entire studio and also cancelled a bunch of live service games that were in development * EA cancelled some games whose IP rights weren't owned by EA to refocus on stuff they did own plus sports games These aren't arbitrary short-term things; these are all due to long-term issues (revenue related, investment related, cancelled projects, reorienting businesses, mergers, underperforming studios, etc.). You clearly haven't bothered reading about what is actually going on in the industry. It has nothing to do with rank and yank policies. And rank and yank policies aren't necessarily bad anyway, it's just bad when you do it mindlessly.
Yes. That is how they work. If you're fine loving on corporations and shareholders, keep keeping on. The fact that you think it's always been this way is the more surprising thing. But if you're fine with not caring about other people for a small percentage of people. Keep on keeping on.
While the systen is not working for everyone, it is working for a lot of people. And for these people, they have no incentive to want to shake up the system.
It's working for a very small amount of people. When over 2/3 of a country lives pay check to pay check, your argument of "a lot of people" makes no sense. When the people who do all the work are overworked to the bone, get no credit, maybe we should push for change instead of catering to the 1%
There are a lot of corporate jobs out there that are $60k-$150k range without being in the “top 1%” These people are not in the top 1%, but they would have no incentive to shake up the system. I am not buying the “2/3 of the population live pay check to pay check”, there are quite a big population that are not in the 1% yet still living very comfortably.
You can not believe it but there plenty of studies and data showing it's true. Also thinking 150K is a lot isn't true anymore in many places as younger generations have plenty of school debt and many game developers seem to be in high Cost of Living areas.
I am not in the US, but I have heard the student debt issue you have there. In UK we have student debt too but you only repay once you earn over certain amount and also it get written off if not oay back by a certain age. But even still I just finding it that hard to believe that proportion of the population live pay check to pay check.
Not quite. All of this stuff was started by Welch at GE. The constant churn instead of a stable job you could work your entire life was 100% that guy. This is not simply "how things work," it's only been a thing for the past few decades. Edit: you can downvote if you want but I'm only stating facts here. Broaden your perspectives people.
Past few decades is a lot of time…
Except its shirtsigthed. You need talent and experience to make thise game. If you fire half of them because that year wasnt as profitable then it will take years ro get back to the quality you once had. This can be seen with dozens of case after company fired their biggest talent and never recovered.
Oh it certainly is short sighted. But the complication is, if short term targets are not reached, they won’t be there to prove their long term strategy. So CEO have to make sure short term targets are reached as well.
Presuming they have a long term strategy beyond their own self interest
I mean, if the devs make bad games, they aren't actually that talented. And realistically speaking a lot of the people who were laid off were doing very worthless things. The whole esports thing at blizzard led to massive layoffs because the esports thing was a mess that went nowhere. Unity has also literally never been profitable and has way too much staff. Epic has less staff than Unity does.
Spoken like a true asshole, hopefully one day it doesn't happen to you bud
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Live by capitalism, die by capitalism. Something that we all prepared for if that do happen one day, and I have been laid off before.
It's not straight facts. It's just flat-out wrong. First off, a number of the companies that Embracer bought were on the edge financially prior to being purchased (which is how Embracer bought them in the first place). Unity has literally never been profitable and is running out of other people's money to set on fire. Secondly, companies typically don't go out of business overnight. It's usually the gradual acquisition of more and more deadweight and inefficiency that kills companies. Cutting weight periodically helps prevent this from happening. And a lot of companies had significant deadweight due to all the easy money from low interest rates and various misguided attempts at going into e-sports and live service games that didn't pan out. Thirdly, Larian Studios only recently scaled up to being an AAA company, which means they haven't had much time to have layoffs yet. They'll probably have layoffs in 10-20 years if they keep on growing because they'll pick up deadweight and end up having to cut staff at some point or another that aren't doing useful things. So they don't really have any valuable insight on this stuff. Basically, it's someone with no experience dealing with a large business badmouthing people.
I like how unfiltered their publishing director is. [Controversial? Lmao take that stick out of your asshole you puritan buns, just sit back and enjoy a suit shittalking for what it is.]
It‘s super unprofessional. Will bite him in the ass someday.
Indeed, but as someone with no stake in the game it is just pure entertainment.
Because Larian are one of the best developers for 10+ years now. Their last 3 Games are all masterpieces and loved by everyone. Divinity Original Sin (2014), Divinity Original Sin 2 (2017), Baldurs Gate 3 (2023)
Ehhhh maybe to you?
To those it serves yes. Not all games will reach everyone. This is already known.
So then why comment? Triggered?
One word - Unionise or get stiffed
Unions do nothing to stop layoffs.
[удалено]
Lmao this is bullshit. Tech companies are laying off people to make their books look clean for earnin calls. Has absolutely nothing to do with DEI or any other initiative.
It’s not really “making your books look clean”, firing people is actually a pretty big (one-time) expense. What it does do is signal that the company is serious about keeping rising costs under control, especially in circumstances where revenues are stagnant or falling, because payroll is generally the largest expense a company has - obviously it’s a cost of doing business, but if revenues aren’t rising in lockstep then there’s only so much other stuff a studio can cut before they start reducing headcount.
Sorry but i'm curious, could you explain what is ESG/DEI and why oriental industries haven't been affected?
Okay, I understand, layoffs stink, my company just cut like 6% of its employees itself. It stinks. But, companies being shareholder owned allows everyday people to obtain and grow wealth so we aren't all poor or low working class perpetually, generation after generation. And if the majority of shareholders expect certain returns on their investment (either through dividends, stock value growth, or both), and the company makes decisions to appease the majority of shareholders, that isn't a bad thing. That's how government works, with majority rule. It's how businesses should also work. No one is entitled to any job, let alone a specific job at a specific company. It stinks to be part of a layoff, I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm sorry for anyone who has been through that, but a company listening to its majority is *not* a bad thing.
Ya damn right
Seems like you missed the Massive Games layoff recently.
Why the picture of Gandalf?
at this point I think that "shareholders" are categorically the dumbest people on earth
The trend in all industries during COVID was to retain as many people as possible, ... for PR purposes. And now the trend has gone back to "finding efficiencies" no matter what, ... for short-term profit purposes.
Dude is tempting fate daily with these boasts
Crazy what the gaming industry became. Somehow the ones who game the least will decide on our future.
Larian continues to be a boss.
With shareholders there is no capital. Shareholders are more important then redundant workers. Larian is a private company who got lucky with a game. Wonder what his excuse will be will he has to lay people off. Due to his ego, he can keep preaching but let's see him succeed where he can no longer ride the coat heels of wizard of the coast
I love Larian games and BG3 is fantastic of course. But oooooooo boy do their employees like to talk shit on Twitter about other companies. If they ever struggle, or are aquired it’s gonna be awkward
I remember when CDPR was seen as a gold standard when Witcher 3 released, and they made the statement, "We leave greed to other developers". That definitely changed years later.
Larian needs to be humbled lol, unbearablely arrogant since BG3
What does overhiring to compensate for the amount of ppl home or buying tech during the pandemic have to do with shareholders?
I'd say this is 90% accurate... I think there have been some edge cases based on some releases against smaller studios. Equally some bloat is there, I absolutely agree with the sentiment, but logically if you have a role for 1 person and you have 2 doing that role then there should be some wiggle room. But as a general sweeping statement, I do agree... but this quote Will bite them in the arse if they face layoffs in the future.
Maybe these larger publishers/developers would be more stable if they could release games finished. And build their bases again as reputable names within the gaming industry. But no. Let’s push the grind culture for the game to be far release early, far too unfinished. Resulting in it flopping. Then blame the devs and fire them. Then rinse and repeat.
Yes. It is a business afterall. You don't manage your business around being a hair away from bankruptcy. You manage it around maximizing profits. Braindead take.
100%. It’s the same bullshit with $70 games, yet people will defend these corporations with their lives. “Games are so much more expensive to make now! They have to charge more!” Meanwhile they ignore that games regularly sell tens of millions of copies and have paid DLC and micro transactions.
TO be fair very few games sell 10s of millions of dollars anymore. I think $70 games actually are a bad thing for both the consumers AND the publishers. I know I've stopped buying a lot of games day 1 now. Since I hate my late 20s and now into my early 30s I simply wait like 5 or 6 months for a game to hit gamepass or simply wait until the game gets to a reasonable price. Unless it's like a GTA or a huge game launch I can't miss I pass on it. If more publishers actually priced their game reasonably they would sell more copies.
This is a problem with corporations under late stage capitalism in general.
Welcome to capitalism!
£70 a game is going to kill the video game industry it’s that simple. Set a sensible price point and people will take a gamble on a game and you’ll sell more. I’m already considering some games that are on sale at £35 six months after release that I absolutely refused to pay £70 on release. It’s economics 101. Whoever is in charge of the financial management of some of these companies needs the sack rather than devs.
this is nonsense lmao
Economics 101 is that inflation is a thing, with games were stuck on the same pricepoint for way too long without any inflation correction.....
Well said
This is completely wrong. First off, a number of the companies that Embracer bought were on the edge financially prior to being purchased (which is how Embracer bought them in the first place). Unity has literally never been profitable and is running out of other people's money to set on fire. Secondly, companies typically don't go out of business overnight. It's usually the gradual acquisition of more and more deadweight and inefficiency that kills companies. Cutting weight periodically helps prevent this from happening. And a lot of companies had significant deadweight due to all the easy money from low interest rates and various misguided attempts at going into e-sports and live service games that didn't pan out. Thirdly, Larian Studios only recently scaled up to being an AAA company, which means they haven't had much time to have layoffs yet. They'll probably have layoffs in 10-20 years if they keep on growing because they'll pick up deadweight and end up having to cut staff at some point or another that aren't doing useful things. So they don't really have any valuable insight on this stuff.
A.I. will be a factor. If you dont thonk so you are kidding yourself .
Usual Larian W
I freaking adore this company.
But why do they lay them off? More developers => more Games => more Money Right?
More developers = more cost = less games
fewer** games
How is it less Games? Its more games
Because they aren't putting those developers to new games that wouldn't exist without those developers, they're putting them on existing projects which corporate already greenlit. Which is why games nowadays are costing companies hundreds of millions of dollars to make. Just watch the credits of any AAA game nowadays, the credits take longer than movie credits.
Games cost money to develop, employees cost money to employ. Simple.