“This Shouldn’t Happen” Affected by PlayStation Layoffs, These Developers Give Their Take on Video Games’ Biggest Crisis
Game news “This Shouldn’t Happen” Affected by PlayStation Layoffs, These Developers Give Their Take on Video Games’ Biggest Crisis
Losses have been heavy this year in the world of video games. Recently, Sony announced a wave of layoffs affecting much of its internal studio, and former Firefighters recently spoke out in defense of their colleagues.
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Sony studio in danger?
We feel like we’re repeating ourselves, but the year 2024 is off to a very bad start for video game developers. While we’re only in the month of March, new layoffs were recently announced, this time regarding various studios under its wing. Sony Interactive Entertainment. One of these studios is like no other Firespiritwhich was acquired by Sony in 2021. Since then, Firespirit worked on The playroomAn augmented reality game that uses PlayStation CameraMobile project Run SackBoy! Run!But like many titles for PSVR The PersistenceAnd more recently Horizon: Call of the Mountain.
unfortunately, Firespirit The universe was heavily impacted by the latest layoffs and service game projects Twisted metal has been cancelled. Starting in 2024, like many companies, PlayStation Studio Cites “economic reasons” for the layoffs, but in the eyes of the victims and the people they worked for, this justification is insufficient. Firespirit Earlier
Fireprite elders speak
In fact, some former members Firespirit recently spoke Twitter (or X), crying injustice towards the treatment of their peers. Game Dev CatWorking as Lead/Senior Dev QA at Joe Wushu Studio (which collaborates with one of the studios Larian to produce Baldur’s Gate III) and who did the work Firespirit For the three years before and after Sony’s acquisition of the studio, developers believe that Firespirit Deserves better than being fired for such random reasons.
I will be brief here.
I worked at Firesprite for 3 years before and after the acquisition.
The studio was acquired only a few years ago, and yet Sony now announces that they will be laying off my co-workers for no other reason than “financial”.
This should not happen. This is not right. pic.twitter.com/mdKX5YoVsN— GameDev Cat (@CatDevQA) February 27, 2024
Similarly, Javier Serranowho is now a senior gameplay programmer Saber Interactiveexpressed solidarity with the retrenchment at FirespiritBy making it clear that his former colleagues give everything they have to every project and that they deserve better than dismissal for “financial reasons”:
I feel so sorry for my colleagues and friends at Fireprite, they deserve better. They are all hard workers, they have given their best in every project we have worked on in the company, only to be let go because of “financials”. If you need to talk or do anything, I’m here
– Javier Serrano (@Sxicion) February 27, 2024
Unfortunately, it seems that “economic reasons” are cited Sony Just the tip of the iceberg, because Eurogamer A few days ago suggested that the environment inside the studio was less than ideal, citing “toxic behavior” from higher-ups and a crunch period to end. Horizon: Call of the Mountain in time. This environment will be the reason for many departures in October 2023, in addition to the layoffs earlier in the year, and we hope that those affected will be able to find work quickly.
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