General Gaming News

[Mani-Man]

An Important Update about Riot’s Future

The following is a copy of the internal message from our CEO.

www.riotgames.com

Riot Games is laying off 530 employees, or 11% of their workforce.

So, decisions were made by higher ups that lead to the necessarity of laying off 530 people...where is the Statement that says that at least one of the higher ups has to leave?
Considering their bad decisions even lead to this?

As usual, that is not happening.
As usual its employees that need to go while the ones who caused this step, will stick around and make millions.

I wish the worst on every higher up in any industry.
Greedy people that ruin everything and never face the consequences of their actions.

 

[blueharvest]

Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

The cuts primarily affect Activision Blizzard employees.

www.theverge.com

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Jason Schreier, Bloomberg News: "These Xbox layoffs are such a mess that staff across Activision Blizzard are texting *me* to try to find out if they might be impacted. Nearly 2,000 job cuts and people now just have to wait around to see if they're part of the bloodbath"

In the same week that their catastrophic MMO's servers shut down, The Day Before CEOs are reportedly starting work on a new game

Several sources claim the Gotovtstev brothers are not done developing games

www.gamesradar.com

The Day Before studio claims it was the victim of a hate campaign by deceptive bloggers | VGC

Fntastic lays the blame for the game’s failure on outside forces…

www.videogameschronicle.com

 

[OtherwiseKnownAs]

Nintendo’s Next Switch Coming This Year With LCD, Omdia Says

Nintendo Co. will launch a new game console this year with an 8-inch LCD screen, according to Omdia analyst Hiroshi Hayase.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Embracer Group Cancels ‘Deus Ex’ Video Game

The Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB is canceling a video game in the beloved Deus Ex series after two years of development and will lay off a number of employees as part of an ongoing initiative to cut costs, according to people familiar with the moves.

www.bloomberg.com

Eraser Group

 

[Iceman]

Embracer Group Cancels ‘Deus Ex’ Video Game

The Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB is canceling a video game in the beloved Deus Ex series after two years of development and will lay off a number of employees as part of an ongoing initiative to cut costs, according to people familiar with the moves.

www.bloomberg.com

Eraser Group

Damn, I love Deus Ex. Wonder what's going to be left of all their studios in a couple of years. Surely they could sell them to a better home rather than closing them and raise money at the same time to finance the remaining ones.

 

[Gee]

Embracer Group Cancels ‘Deus Ex’ Video Game

The Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB is canceling a video game in the beloved Deus Ex series after two years of development and will lay off a number of employees as part of an ongoing initiative to cut costs, according to people familiar with the moves.

www.bloomberg.com

Eraser Group

Absolute bull****.

 

[Slick]

Embracer Group Cancels ‘Deus Ex’ Video Game

The Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB is canceling a video game in the beloved Deus Ex series after two years of development and will lay off a number of employees as part of an ongoing initiative to cut costs, according to people familiar with the moves.

www.bloomberg.com

Eraser Group

Wow that sucks.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Square Enix absorbs Tokyo RPG Factory

Square Enix will merge with Tokyo RPG Factory in an absorption-type merger, the company announced.

www.gematsu.com

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

NFTs are the future they used to say too.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Bloomberg: Square Enix plans major reform of game development structure

Square Enix is undergoing a drastic review of its development structure with the aim of improving the quality of its titles, Bloomberg reports Square Enix representative director and president Taka…

www.gematsu.com

 

[Mani-Man]

Unless they step away from NFT, Blockchain, GAAS etc...its all unimportant.
I have little interest in SE titles and even less knowing their strategy is to embrace these kind of things...even AI "art" more.
So unless they go the opposite direction of that, no reform is good enough for me.

 

[Gee]

More layoffs at Visual Concepts Austin after 2K cuts "several" jobs

"The games industry bloodletting continues. Today, Visual Concepts Austin laid off myself and a group of very talented developers."

www.gamedeveloper.com

2K Games has laid off a group of developers at Lego 2K Drive and NBA 2K developer Visual Concepts Austin, adding to the onslaught of job cuts that has decimated the game industry and the lives of developers across 2023 and 2024

Brad Bowling on LinkedIn: Well...the games industry bloodletting continues. Today Visual Concepts… | 16 comments

Well...the games industry bloodletting continues. Today Visual Concepts Austin laid off myself and a group of very talented developers. I have had a great time… | 16 comments on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com

Well...the games industry bloodletting continues. Today Visual Concepts Austin laid off myself and a group of very talented developers. I have had a great time over the past couple of years working with some of the finest Game Devs in the industry. Over the past 23 years of making game art, I have seen some downturns but nothing like this.
If anyone is in need of someone with my "particular set of skills" please reach out.
I'll be hitting the virtual pavement hard as soon as I'm done crying in my beer. GG All

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

Disney to take $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games, work with Fortnite maker on new content

Disney is investing $1.5 billion for an equity stake in Epic Games.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Sithborg]

You know, people give Nintendo **** for its products, but at least their business practices are much better than others.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

 

[blueharvest]

The impact of 16,000 games industry layoffs, in one chart

Game developers share personal stories of how the 2023-2024 layoffs have affected them.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

The FTC isn’t too happy with Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard layoffs

And it’s telling on Microsoft

www.polygon.com

 

[Iceman]

If it’s fictional then no harm in letting players keep their currency.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

If it’s fictional then no harm in letting players keep their currency.

Or allowing hacking tools to give players more 'fictional' currency.

PUBLISHERS: Nooooooo!

Yeah, they are full of crap.

 

[Teelie]

The FTC isn’t too happy with Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard layoffs

And it’s telling on Microsoft

www.polygon.com

Is anyone remotely surprised they were going to layoff hundreds to thousands of people? Consolidation always leads to people losing their jobs.

 

[psylockolussus]

Does AI has something to do with these layoffs? I feel like gaming studios would rely more on AI to speed up game production and AI is probably cheaper than keeping all current employees.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Is anyone remotely surprised they were going to layoff hundreds to thousands of people? Consolidation always leads to people losing their jobs.

That's the thing, though. They promised that it wasn't going to happen and it did. Microsoft already came back with a response though that those layoffs were planned way in advance. Not that it makes it any better, in my opinion.

 

[blueharvest]

'I've Never Seen It This Bad:' Game Developers Explain the Huge Layoffs Hitting Riot, Epic, and More - IGN

I spoke to over 40 game developers whose companies had been impacted by layoffs in the last year. They shared with me the explanations companies gave them for what was causing the sudden loss of their livelihood, but they also told me why those explanations didn’t always seem to match reality.

www.ign.com

 

[Sithborg]

Does AI has something to do with these layoffs? I feel like gaming studios would rely more on AI to speed up game production and AI is probably cheaper than keeping all current employees.

No. This is essentially the beginning of the crash AAA gaming has been looking at for some time.