900 PlayStation Employees Laid Off, London Studio Closed

Jeewze man! The purge needs to end!

in order to "future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead"

Even ChatGPT would put together a more comprehensive explanation containing a little bit of empathy

Damn, was hoping for something random/brilliant to pop out of London Studio. Gutted.

Jeez, when will it stop? What is causing all these industry wide lay-offs? It just cant be related to Post Covid recovery / AAA Expenses

If you were to remove Fortnite, Minecraft, COD, and a couple of the other heavy hitters, I wonder how healthy the gaming industry actually is. Because this isn't a normal amount of job losses that we've seen this year.

At a time when Sony is having trouble getting first party games out at a steady pace, this is extremely concerning.

First Pixelopus, now London…

something has to give in the industry and fast, we can't continue to allow innocent employees across the board to suffer and pay the price for investors and executives making horrible decisions.

instead of buying a PS5 Pro this winter, how about you put that money into supporting indie titles so the industry can see how sick we all are of these AAA/AAAA mockeries

I hope everyone effected lands on their feet quickly. This is the second round of lay offs effecting Sony after the ones late last year.

The industry is in the bin right now and this was always comming after their latest financial results were so poor. They are in bad shape right now, along with alot of others.

Maybe shouldn't have wasted 4 billion buying Bungie.

Is there any developer/publisher who hadn't had to lay off employees lately except Nintendo?

Hope they'll find a new job soon

@PaperAlien Yeah, there's probably lots of reasons, but the big factors are overhiring during the covid boost, and CEOs/execs refusing to take pay cuts basically.

@LifeGirl it’s not normal at all. It’s due to a ridiculous amount of over hiring and executives blindly assuming the pandemic growth would continue indefinitely. Anyone with a brain would know it wouldn’t, because people have lives and aren’t sitting at home gaming as much since we aren’t locked down. It’s taken them way too long to figure that out.

The sad part is had the folks at corporate not been so stupid and weren’t pushing garbage that gamers didn’t want, these employees would still have jobs. The losses from garbage products like suicide squad, Jim’s push for live services etc wasted resources that could’ve paid wages for these same employees.

Better late than never, but still ludicrous.

@Amppari Don't be such a fool, these are innocent employees with families who are now unemployed through no fault of their own, have some compassion.

@DrClayman shouldn’t need to take pay cuts in the first place. That happens when business decisions are being made that have little foresight or are poorly thought out and implemented. Aka mismanagement. Many gaming companies have doubled down on stupidity. Make bad decisions and then lay off employees who had nothing to do with it.

Wow. The UK gaming industry, like most of the UK economy really, seems to be imploding.

@TwoDents Sorry what? What makes you think I support all this?

“But but but they’re selling more consoles!”

@jFug Xbox is gonna be bailing them out with their own games for the foreseeable future lol

I have no words. Simply terrible and inexcusable no matter how you see it.

@TwoDents Ah, nevermind pal, looked at the wrong reply, sorry!

Hopefully they all get decent redundancy pay and move on to better jobs for themselves.

The days of letting AAA budgets increase to 200-300million needs to be put to an end. its bleeding creativity dry, and since a console average lifespan is 5-7yrs, there will be far less games releasing the longer this continues.

I hope this is a wake up call for all publishers. if a game like lethal company, among us, rocket league can have massive appeal with far less budgets and devs working on it, then Sony and Microsoft can so the same with the bundles of talent they have working for them

@LifeGirl I think we have way more options than even before. Same with Netflix and other streamers. It's impossible for everyone to be successful.

@ArcadeHeroes but isn't that like lighting in a bottle? You can't simply replicate that. Yes, such games can be successful, but tons of similar games are released and they flop regardless of quality.

That’s unfortunate but very much forewarned

@naruball seems far more realistic to turn a profit on a smaller game, than investing half a billion into something that would tank no ?

I cant even imagine how much sony invested in those Gaas. and still after 3-4 years not 1 of them released

Devastating news! I hope everyone affected lands on his feet and manages to get a better position/job as soon as possible

Europe is in shambles ..The cost of life is unbearable..Gaming is becoming less and less of a priority for most people. Very few games will stick and turn healthy profits.

@ArcadeHeroes though I agree about GaaS, games like GoW, Spider-man 2 cost a ton, but are guaranteed to sell well and also to sell consoles.

Dammit. 1st-party PSVR2 games are truly done for, aren't they? Maybe another AstroBot, but nothing else I can see coming from them.

On the bright side, its not bend closing but terrible. What did london studios do? Also how does Media Molecule keep dodging the scythe

Terrible, terrible news. Two devs with experience in VR lost. The worst news possible for me from a gaming perspective.
Hope they find alternative employment

When you see that a video game requires more budget than the biggest Hollywood movie and that it takes 5 years to produce, all of that for a small market in comparison, yeah there is a problem in this industry. Someone in another topic was complaining that From Software is milking their graphics engine and should move forward to something more impressive. Well, maybe it's because they don't have the money to hire thousands of people to create a new graphics engine, they know that they will never sell billions like Mario Kart, so maybe they are a little bit more savvy and smart how to manage a studio, which is probably why they are still alive in this industry and not chasing the next AAAAA title.

@Victor_Meldrew Buying Bungie was utterly bizarre.

Upsetting but not surprising. The budgets have spiralled out of control and development is taking too long for most studios.

Also, Bungie was a blunder.

Tbf I kinda saw this coming, everyone is laying off staff and was only a matter of time before Sony inevitably had to do the same. What's troubling is all these guys getting laid off from all the top publishers/developers so there's not much choice when finding new work, or maybe this will see new studios open up from laid off staff or maybe they join current indie/AA devs so we see more games from the smaller side of gaming. Hopefully their talent isn't just wasted.

Thats crazy.hopefully everything turns out good for PlayStation.word up son

Awful. Considering the current state of the industry, not surprising, but still awful. Feels like the entire industry needs a complete reboot or something.

Obviously this is affecting many industries and not just gaming but gaming is going to have to change and very quickly and is with Xbox putting their games on Playstation and Sony onto PC.

That said they and gamers need to start normalising smaller budget games with less graphical fidelity. It's exciting when games look really nice but they aren't any more enjoyable to play

Wow!! This doesn’t feel good but given market trends understandable.

Pathetic. So incredibly disappointing. A once great Japanese giant resorting to scummy, cutthroat American corporate tactics to appease the shareholders. Bonus points for having “retired” Jim Ryan throw himself under the bus.
Only have so much power but I’ll do my part as this will cost them some pre orders with me. Can’t stand supporting companies that do this crap. The last outlaw Nintendo gets more of my support now.

That's just sad. Would have loved to see a follow-up to Blood & Truth one day.

These bloated game budgets need to be reigned in and reduced. Terrible news. Even the reason Sony gave, the wording is ridiculous. Seriously, even a Chatbot could give a better reason.

Sony's recent statement of no new established 1st party franchise titles until 2025 is even more apparent now.

The only ones I don't feel sorry for are the fanboys who, up until last year, defended Sony to the death, while crapping on the competition for their various troubles.

Horrendous news! I feel for all those affected..

@LifeGirl I think part of the problem is those games. Most casual gamers are staying there and not playing new games. For example, those who play Suicide Squad, Prince of Persia, and Foamstars etc are enjoying. But they aren't selling well. Services like Gamepass, Psplus also make gamers wait games for free.

Hopefully some of those laid off across the sector can come together, get a few ideas going and potentially start up themselves!

Really wasn't expecting London to be shutdown. I thought it would have been media molecule. Don't see arrowhead being acquired anymore since the massive 1st party layoffs. Really think they're going to outsource work as well as using ai to reduce costs.

Aren't arrowhead looking for devs , good luck to them all , nothing worse , I hope London studios has a good redundancy package

Remember back in 2020 when some of us were saying Rim Ryan is going to destroy PS? Remember when so many blindly defended him because he was the leader of their favorite brand and PS profits were up? And some of us said he was just riding the success his predecessors built on PS4 and we wouldn't see what Jim's PS looked like until 2024 at the soonest, maybe not even until PS6? And here we are in 2024, welcome to Jim's Playstation. It's actually worse than even I expected.

Yeah, Jim's out too. But Jim gets a golden parachute on your $70. The other 8% of PS doesn't.

RIP Psygnosis.

"We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan". So the hard part was the announcement, not the decision to fire 900 people. Seems about right for these big companies.

The final nail in the coffin. Sony really have become the villain this gen.

Awful news and a very bad sign for the industry when 2 big players like Sony and Microsoft are shedding staff.

What's particularly upsetting to me about this story though, is the complete closure of London Studio. 😢

One less co-op game for people with no friends to play with.

The business model is unsustainable. They don't have enough games, they take too long to make, there isn't enough of a userbase, the games are too expensive for a lot of people, and yet all we hear about is more powerful consoles for more detailed games, that they can't make because they've thinned their workforce.

That's just insane.

It’s always sad to hear about job losses. This move mirrors much of the greater tech industry in that the over-hiring during the pandemic, and then the following economic slowdown being experienced worldwide is leading to inevitable retraction. Companies have little choice but to slim down, make high selling products, and try to weather the current market downturn.

@NEStalgia this happening everywhere it not just a ps issue

I do gotta give Nintendo some credit. They seem to be the only big player not joining the lay-off train. Hopefully that continues and to the folks affected here I wish you all the best.

Not trying to sound heartless but honestly I'm shocked it wasn't Media Molecule that was shuttered. What with Dreams bombing and all.

@Shepherd_Tallon yeah only time will tell. I know how you feel about London, I felt the same for pixelopus was really looking forward on seeing what they were developing.

@PaperAlien I think it genuinely is. Everyone expanded too fast during COVID, console sales (and graphics, imo) are hitting a ceiling, and games are getting too expensive too make (under current budgets, at least).
Lastly, I believe simply too many games are being made. Nowadays we have so much more things competing for our time (work and stuff to do in free time) that a 'meh' game among hundreds just won't sell that well.

@__jamiie just checked their wikipedia page and apparently they hadn't released anything since 2019? That's quite a while ago... If they were working on a PSVR2 game, I wonder why it wasn't announced, unless it wasn't going well.

Keep in mind Sony profits are up and Playstation is still breaking records. its just margins are costing sony big time with game development too high and is hurting them.

Sony cant even afford to drop the price of the PS5 because some of the parts sony use are too costly and they cant afford to cut price to try to get more people buying the system.

All that BS because they wasted money on trash no one wanted.

This year is a total disaster in every way. I'm sure the games we'll get from all three camps will be great but seeing this happen so often and we're not even in March just sucks.

Depressing news, if not surprising or unexpected.

Seems like the future of gaming is Apple Arcade, small games on a rental service. Gamepass at least has some bigger games but not really much in the pipeline I’m aware of so I could see them switching to mostly smaller games, nothing that takes more than a couple of years to make.

It really is insane how long games take to make. Squaresoft was basically releasing a full JRPG a year from 1997 to 1999 w/ FF7, FF8 and FF9, and now it takes them 6 years to remake only one of those. Even Nintendo takes years, 5 years for Zelda dlc to become a game, no new Mario Kart in a decade, 5 years since the last 3D Mario, about 8 years between Pikmin 3 and Pikmin 4. Nintendo got to sell a lot of games twice thanks to Wii Us failure but what will they do if Switch 2 is fully bc? What do they sell then?🤷🏻‍♂️

Tough time to be a gaming company, tougher time to be a gaming company employee, and AI is coming.😩

Always saddened to see these things. Best wishes to all those impacted; I am sure you're many and vast talents will fund their place and rewards elsewhere. Take care.

After seeing the news about the stock dropping 10 billion in value a week ago, I was wondering what would happen.

“We over hired during the pandemic on live service titles which we have since canned after realising players don’t want them.”

Ouch.

You wake up, head into the office. Go to the kitchen amd make your coffee, sit at your desk and power up pc. Then the dreaded company wide email pops on your outlook, followed by staff meeting.

Been there in the gaming industry. It sucks

@rjejr Xbox and Gamepass has 4 or more AAA First Party exclusives coming this year , "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle", "Hellblade 2", "Flight Sim 2024", 'Avowed", their pipeline looks fairly busy to me.

The whole tech industry is undergoing a hard reset right now. Not just the gaming segment. Tens of thousands of positions removed across the board.
Sony (900) is just following in the wake of Microsoft (1900) and shedding jobs to increase leaness.
Normally the upside of this would be that in a couple of months the dust woud have settled and hires would begin again. But with the increasing sophistication of AI that hire triangle is going to get a lot smaller (think most experienced at the top moving down to junior roles at the bottom).
It might be time to consider re-training. I, for example, have taken a keen interest in Rutabagas. Lifecycle and propogation.

Didn't they just move some of the studios into fancy new builds, could have saved a few quid there.

Hope everyone affected lands on their feet.
I know it is popular to blame Jim for all of this but I also think Hermen is equally responsible, if not more so....can't wait for that Horizon remaster.
I won't go on about my previous psvr2 comment but I would have thought the easy money would have been to move London Studio over to a PSVR1 port studio as I'm sure many PSVR2 owners would gladly pay to play their beloved PSVR1 games again, not to mention new to PSVR games as many PSVR1 are still unbeaten.

I think maybe we heading on all platforms, gone are the days of the massive single true big AAA games some of us love and enjoy.
Especially exclusive wise.

I think the GAAS and mobile market and the odd just above average AAA game now and again.
The cost justification and return on investment doesn’t seem to be enough for these companies on the big true AAA campaign games anymore.

I've survived nearly a dozen rounds of redundancy over the years and been a victim of 1. Seen these emails, it's really demoralizing. Stay in long enough, though, you kind of get hardened to it.

The software industry in general is struggling right now, so wish all those good luck in finding something else.

I find the comparisons with Nintendo a little weird. Microsoft and Sony can't release a remake of a last generation game and have it sell 10x more than the rest of the competition. Seriously. Think about how much the remake of Mario Kart cost and how long it took to make compared to God of War 2 or Spidey 2. Or how well Pokemon games sell with minimal effort.

Sony and MS don't have that kind of IPs.

(this is not to excuse Sony. They're making so much profit that they could easily have kept those employees; but they're all about maximizing profits nowadays going as far as increasing the price of ps5s)

It’s a terrible awful day in the office today

@CaptD that would have made too much sense. Probably why they didn't do it.

Well that sucks, there's definitely a lot of downsizing going on lately within the industry. Hopefully everyone affected can land straight back on their feet.

I wonder if London studios new game was in development hell. I would love a Getaway remake as well.

This industry is so cooked.

Wow so many lives affected always crappy to hear news like this..hope they all ok after all this 🙏🏿

Sony has been lacking already the last few years. Hearing this makes me feel like it's only gonna get worse. Worst generation by far from Sony.

I wanna say I’m shocked but 🤷‍♂️

Really hoping the best for everyone affected by the job losses though, regardless of what they were working on.

@LifeGirl If you observe how triple AAA projects have been performing lately, and then you do so with indie and independent games such as "Baldur's Gate, Helldivers2, PalmWorld, and many others; you will come to the same conclusion. Triple AAA games are dying due to the disproportionate ambition of those investors who don't know anything about games, much less have any passion for them.
Triple A games have become a soulless generic product. You still have the GoWs, Horizons, and so on, but when it comes to multiplayer they lack personality, ambition, and risk-taking. And what's more, those games are the ones costing 70€... little more to say!

Very sad news. I hate seeing this happen to the industry. My heart goes out to all those affected by this situation.

It's sad way to find out about it. I can't imagine how developers feel when they received the bad news that they are no longer employees.

@Czar_Khastik Why are you waiting for empathy from a company?

This really has me lit up, it's just so upsetting because we've seen it all play out in front of us.
Did those 900 people let Insomniac make a $300 Million Spidey game, that still turned a profit & sold God knows how many consoles in just 2 months?
Did those 900 people light $4 BILLION on fire by acquiring a rapidly declining Bungie?
Did those 900 people acquire a bunch of support studios to make a bunch of PC ports that keep flopping?
Did those 900 people not properly support a pipeline of exclusive games for PS5 and force them to pay for a bunch of "exclusives"?
Did those 900 people have the biggest PS Studios go all in on GAAS and set them back YEARS of development after flip flopping when realizing no one wanted them?
Sony had the blueprint of success right in front of them: PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4 & Nintendo, but they insisted on chasing Microsoft's failures, so desperate to be one of the "American big boys".
This is all on the backs of record profits & sales by the way. Sony's leadership has been playing Wolf of Wall Street and they let these 900 people take the fall.

"We need to deliver on expectations from developers and gamers", more like we need to keep delivering those massive dividends to our shareholders. 2023 was a hugely successful year for the video games industry. What we're seeing now is an attempt to create FUD in the games employment sector so forcing down wages and maximizing profits at the top.

Just to be clear... the overall consensus remains that videogames shouldn't cost more than they do?

This is awful. It seems to be another horrid side effect of Sony's ill-fated live-service push. All of the studios listed were working on live-service games: London Studio, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and Guerilla. Hopefully the laid off devs get back on their feet quickly.

@MrMagic They needed to just make a new Getaway and fill a niche that has been left abandoned in the wake of 3 GTA V remasters. Instead, Jim Ryan's ill-fated live service push as proven to be such a misfire that it has derailed Sony's plans for several years it seems and affected thousands of employees' lives.

This sucks and hopefully all those people find something else quickly.

Things in the 'AAA' portion of the gaming industry have gotten out of control and companies are struggling to respond. Hate to say it, but just like with Xbox, I think PlayStation, as we've known it, is pretty much finished.

And yet, they can think PS5 is only halfway through its life cycle with game budgets in the 9 figures... slow down, you're destroying your studios and laying good people off.

It's all about the profit margin with Sony these days, it seems. PS5 isn't going to sell as many as they thought (about 4 million units down) and so profits are down - bear in mind that's PROFITS - and so to protect that profit margin for the shareholders, the workers take the hit.
Suppose they need to get Jim Ryan's golden-handshake from somewhere. The guy's been such an inspiration (on how not to be a good CEO)

Good luck to all those affected, hope they find something soon though the way the industry is going, where's safe?

This is just a horrid time for the gaming industry. Employees definitely need to unionize or this will just keep happening.

@DrClayman I see this a lot and I never understand it.

If we just say that the average employee was making $60K/yr x 900 people, you would need to find $54 mil to save their jobs.

CEO's and execs make a lot but their base salary isn't as high as people think nor are there enough of them where cutting salary would be enough to save them all - it might save a fraction of the people cut. Sure it's still jobs saved, but the news would still be like 850 people were cut.

Now if we are talking about reducing profit payouts to shareholders...that's a whole different ballgame and a more understandable statement to make.

@theSpectre Yeah it's crazy how they just ignore some of their ips. I guess they think because they didn't sell massive numbers back then that they aren't worth revisiting but I'd imagine a new Getaway has a good chance at being a big hit these days.

Saying that they probably don't want to sour the relationship they have with Rockstar by making a competitor.

Sorry for those affected, this is on SONY it is just reckless employment practices. Shame on them

@GamingFan4Lyf Bonuses/salaries, whatever needs to be done. I realise sometimes the grim reality is that layoffs might be necessary to save a company from folding (so to avoid even more people losing their jobs), but this should be the absolute very last resort after everything else has been implemented. The fact that these companies don't mention senior management pay cuts, stopping bonuses etc always makes me think this is not the case and they go to layoffs first.

Bobby Kotick took 400 mil with him just months before Activision laid off 2000 people. I'm dreading to find out what Jim Ryan will take home next month, cause I really doubt he's gonna forfeit any bonuses he might be eligible for after all his years at Sony to save some people from losing their jobs.

@PaperAlien I'm guessing greedy shareholders 🤣😭

This is what happens when you invest in models most don't want. It's pretty telling that they made the 'nearly out the door talking head' who helped get them in this mess announce the news. Like it was just that idiot that did this, so place untold Blame on him, and make it seem like this is a fresh start..

This is what many of us kept saying was the likely result if Sony continued down the road of following mirage in the desert predation models years after its gold rush along side rereleasing recycled content over and over again. This has Made Sony complacent and frankly dated all while completely ghosting their community of gamers.
Yet we that have spoken up are attacked by the community, and the excuses and schilling was barked back. One recent earnings report to the scumbag shareholders that doesn't reflect continued movement of the illusory everlasting growth model and here we are.

It's tragic news. I feel for those affected whom now lose their livelihoods, because of directives made by these scumbags. Whom only a handful will face the same fate.

This is going to be one dry generation that never was. Don't let the excuses fool you. The industry is in this state only because they made it so. Time and time again we see examples of amazing smaller budget experiences that don't require hundreds of millions of dollars to produce what often ends up being nothing more than another buy the books sequel.

This is truly awful. If Sony does move forward acquiring Arrowhead, which they absolutely need to do, the optics of the situation would be even worse.

I suspect a lot of these industry layoffs are a result of the ever-increasing costs to develop games and the "value-destructive" practices of Game Pass (as quoted by numerous major gaming CEOs, but also is completely obvious) and, to a lesser degree, similar services.

@DrClayman I concur about layoffs being last resort. I'm just a stickler for wording. Base salaries cuts may save up to 3 or 4 jobs per CEO/exec. Seeing as how corporations tend to have only a handful of CEO's and execs, that may save 50 - 100 jobs (still jobs saved, but not enough)

But those tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses per person could have probably saved them all along with hiring more talent.

@get2sammyb

I had a couple of game testing opportunities in The London Studio also, very sad day indeed for the employees

Very sad to see this news, wish all employees the best!

Microsoft is such an abomination in the gaming industry.

Oh, wait…..

Apparently Sony also absolutely lost their way.

@DonJorginho ironically the AAAA behemoths are the only reason gaming employment is so huge. If studios see games like Palworld and Helldiver can be made with handfuls of people, while AAAA games struggle to make their budgets back, lay offs are guaranteed. Which is what we are seeing. The better smaller games do, the less justification leaders have to hire 700-1,000 people to make a game.

@SoulChimera Right!? Especially since the UK and the EU are a massive market and unbelievably loyal to the Playstation brand, you would think that Sony would have spared them just for optics alone. I'm no expert, but closing a Sony named studio in their strongest market, arguably, isn't a great move.

@sanderson72 I mean isn’t every company’s goal to hit their profit margin? It’s not different with Sony as it is the countless other tech companies that had to lay people off. Sadly I know people who had to do the laying off so many % of their workers in the tech industry and it’s not easy. The bright side is they can find work quickly in a new studio or another developer or even eventually return to Sony.

I think this is pretty much all the proof you need that the industry in its current configuration is unsustainable. The PS5 by all accounts has been quite successful, but if you have to layoff nearly 1000 people then something is going wrong.

This truly sucks for those laid off. Seems like every gaming company has laid off staff recently. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually with Sony.

@Friendly It's a little different, no? Sony didn't just spend tens of billions acquiring these people to immediately fire 900 of them. Even when they spent 3.6bn on Bungie they didn't do that, 1.2bn of that figure was spent on employee retention rather than severance packages.

Anyway, It's always sad to read about things like this happening in the industry, hopefully they're not out of work for too long.

@GamingFan4Lyf Yeah, that's fair mate, i think we're on the same page anyway. I could have worded that different, didn't mean specifically base rates, just a better allocation of funds/profits so people don't lose their jobs was my main point.

This sickens me when they wasted billions on bungie. Why doesn’t Ryan just cut the crap and own up.

It’s mis-management that has caused this, wouldn’t it be refreshing if that was acknowledged for a change.

No doubt he’ll still walk away with his fat bonus when he leaves.

So the question is whether or not to walk down to the local 365 Discount and buy popcorn for the inevitable Sammy Barker editorial/analysis of the state of the play(station).. and the business as a whole.

It does seem like modern gamers have incredible short attention spans though; A few weeks ago Palworld was the biggest thing, but then came Helldivers 2 and suddenly not that many people play the former anymore (all according to steamcharts.com).

I wonder how long Helldivers 2 will last in that regard as it's probably just another fairly generic co-op shooter in the end. Guess time will tell.

@Americansamurai1 @cuttlefishjones @rjejr Yep, AI is replacing jobs very quickly, and there's not a lot they can do about it.

Do you know where we could get the list of the jobs being laid off, to get an idea of how much could be due do AI? I'd bet IT and art jobs are the first to go, but I may be wrong...

@shgamer if the model is making money on the initial sale, it doesn’t need to be a game people play more than a month. The problem is games with insane budgets that need a lot of people who bought it for $70 to buy battle passes and expansions over a period of years for the company to make back its money.

@Konks Yeah, I'm sure both games have been very profitable. But if you're trying to build IPs with long term success, it might be a bit worrying (it's a bit like one hit pop band wonders really).

@TheCollector316 It always comes back to MS fault for you doesn't it. Stop already. All companies are being affected.

I enjoy the positivity of the Sony community. So many comments here are basically, "Awesome, I'm sure they cancelled only the games I am not interested in so they can now focus on the games I am interested in." I wish I believed in anything as much as some of y'all believe in a corporation that only cares about your money.

Hermen, if you reading this:

Why don’t be a good sport and quiet. Multiple developers could have kept their job when you quiet (your salary must be x million). They are the bread and butter of Playstation. You are just a supporting role such as HR.

Hi first post, does anyone else think the trade in market and rental service is what’s closing studios down? In the uk we can trade in and rent the studio is only getting one sale from this. All we are getting at this moment is remakes, rare original and studios closing. Quite clear from myself at the moment the studios aren’t getting the investment from the players. Might be wrong but while the trading market and rental services are around I cannot see where the studios are going to make there money. Shame about the news!

@Babayaga

What’s happening is unsustainable budgets for games resulting in unachievable sales needed to break even or better yet to make profit.

@Sanquine
So the trade in/ rental market is nothing to do with this and the one sale going to the games being made? Just trying to get my head around it! But thanks for the response we’ve been speaking about this at work and all have different opinions.

Well, I think it's definitely confirmed I should stop waiting for a Getaway 3 or London Heist 2

This business is cyclical, so it’s not unusual, but it also sucks. The idea of long-term career stability in the industry of video games is a fallacy. It’s really unfortunate for everyone involved. I’ve been laid off multiple times in my career (not video games), and each time it’s hard. The bills keep coming. You can’t stop ‘em.

I wish everyone the best, and I hope everyone lands on their feet in an even better, more prosperous role in the future.

@Fishnpeas I swear London Studio couldn't catch a break, first when it was Psygnosis, then Team Soho, Studio Liverpool, now this. Terrible for all those effected.

@Zenos except they haven't said how many are being let go in Japan, just that this is 'globally'. Don't forget, Sony are massively in debt, like over $31 billion, which affects SIE.

PS5 is the worst playstation generation

@Babayaga people have been able to trade their old games since the start of the industry. If anything it is less of an issue now with more people moving to digital.
Subscription services on the other hand, well who knows, they haven't affected my buying habits personally but I can't speak for everyone.

@Victor_Meldrew that was a stupid move. I wonder what they may achieve long-term

Just a shot in the dark but it sounds like they are canceling most if not all of their live service unannounced games , and the people that were hired to work on those games are the ones who they are laying off.

Pl-AI-station 6 is gonna be something.

It's the subscription/pass/plus culture, it doesn't work on the long term. Too much content for too small amount of money.

@Olmaz I feel like someday, maybe in a few years, we'll have game engines like unreal that make a game for you just by answering a few questions. Might already exist going by some of the shovelware out there now.😂

"while the latter [Firesprite] hasn't released a new game since being acquired."

Firesprite released Horizon Call of the Mountain after being acquired by Sony.

@PaperAlien over-expansion due to minimal interest rates, remote policies leading to companies actually needing to compete nationally in terms of pay and now they can start going back to paying people less for the same amount of work—lots of factors like that.

it's absolutely tanking companies that rely on investments—which goes for most publishers, and development studios with large teams. which then cascades and hits developers who require publishers, investors, funds, etc. to remain open.

so the industry is constricting because of short-sighted execs and the like over-investing¹. investors realized that it wasn't a golden goose, that there is a ***** ton of competition, that even if you toss a bunch of money at a big AAA company who supposedly makes lots of money and is a good bet, they can still get lapped in sales by some random indie on Steam—like Balatro outperforming Skull and Bones.

(FWIW, Balatro is amazing and it deserves that success, but investors look at that and see, "oh, this industry is really unpredictable, I can invest in something else more reliable instead.")

¹edit: not to mention the nonstop, aggressive M&A plays everywhere, which led to other studios panicking and reactively over-investing too, in order to shore up their core developmental partners. there was an interview over on gamesindustry.biz a few months ago with one of the main brains at Devolver Digital that is INCREDIBLY revealing in this regard.

@Zenos heh, i really don’t know how to respond to that since you said in your opinion. i guess I’ll just say i disagree but understand your opinion

@Sifi Thanks for the info. Forgot about Indy, didn't know about the rest. Well I knew about Hellblade 2 but I thought that released already, like a couple of years ago already.🤷‍♂️ No wonder I keep reading about people speculating about a price increase. Actually seems like a fairly decent lot.

I still think the future holds less larger AAA games, just look at PS5 this year, and Switch as well really. They just cost too much and take too long to make. The future of games is digital rentals. See music, tv and movies. Heck where I live most people lease (rent) cars mote than buy. And apartment rentals I believe is on the uptick. Nobody wants to buy anything anymore. Why buy a cow when the milk is so cheap?🐮

Edit: My mistake, car leasing on the decline, I was a little behind on my news.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2023/02/17/heres-why-fewer-consumers-are-leasing-cars-these-days/?sh=6dd3ccfd4af1

Apartment renting is on the uptake though. Probably for the same reason car leasing is down, costs.

https://thehill.com/business/4143860-more-than-half-of-gen-z-says-renting-is-a-better-option-than-buying-a-home/

I can understand smaller companies or companies that bought more than they could afford having downsizing like this, but when it's somebody that's completely dominating the video game industry right now (along with Nintendo), I find it hard to believe this is truly necessary to "future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead". It comes off as more like "everybody else was doing it, and some of our studios already did it previously, so let's try to line our pockets even more."

This is the most angry I have been on this site. This is dumb. They’re your talent. Without your devs you have a pc that doesn’t run anything.

@KilloWertz the success the platform is having isn't really the reason the for the lays offs. if those live service games those studios were working on were canceled , then the people that were hired just to work on live service games no longer have work , which means they are layed off.

So they have readied the company for what lies ahead by cancelling games??? In what world does that make any sense?
Unless they are all related to the love services idea as that is understandable.

Singstar, Buzz I think? EyeToy, PS Move, PSVR, Playlink I think. The Getaway series and Blood and Truth somewhat bringing that back after the dead PS3 project of Getaway.

To a fantasy co-op game because Sony isn't touching PSVR2 for some reason and maybe Asobi will. Yeah..... quite sad.

Liverpool gone 10+ years ago and now London. Sad days. Glad I have bought up 4 Playlink games, questioning Buzz at all.

But I mean like GT5/Last Guardian money they need to stop wasting it the ways they are now even if the differences were there back then with those two games. GT games alone the manufacturers VIsion GT are just a waste of time and money and licensing costs of the cars, making them.

Let alone A list actors and whatever else in games, too much time on perfection when half the time I couldn't care less. I either don't play them, put the game on mute/listen to music, don't care about the OSTs anymore or the actors and graphics I'm like eh they are fine, nothing I haven't already seen or that interested in. The animation can be outstanding but oh the water, the shine, the skin, the environments I just don't care. The level designs are so bland why would I care what they look like visually of texture work if the layout for them is so eh and unexciting to play around in.

Unfortunate. Then again a bunch of live services and whatever 'oh this leadership yeah we have changed course' does happen, like they would have been expensive and maybe flops who knows with too many going on then just 1-2 not more than that, or however much third party/micro transaction money they get maybe besides the Fate GO money, WipEout Rush died (and other mobile games we don't hear about), Destruction Allstars was a really not well thought out game that Lucid needed to think about more but didn't. Did they forget Blur flopped when they were Bizarre Creations then the Lucid/Playground split of devs to those studios or wherever else. The vehicle market is very different these days.

Them having live services is fine but 'so many' does seem a bit much let alone some of the ideas I'm like uh did they need that or 'we got a logo' so how can we care about something we know nothing about when we probably can guess they weren't much anyway.

In terms of the other studios well that's unfortunate too.

What more profit do they need? Were the third parties not enough besides all the prep they have in the coming months. Were those staff worth losing, maybe some it's possible but at the same time do they need 300+ maybe, maybe not. Some games just don't have the staff skilled enough, how far teams are spread, other times it's deadlines are too tricky to reach, the games are too big of scale/too awkward of management at times, multiple other factors.

Could they like not push for 300+ million or whatever budgets?

I mean I only care about Asobi/Media Molecule at this point honestly which don't cost 100s of millions so to me I'm not missing out on anything these days. But most people are so it is what it is.

They need to stop wasting hundreds of millions of dollars, making a damn video game.
They have gone too far with this whole AAA thing.

I really miss the PS1-PS3 era of Playstation.
The magic is gone...

@Olmaz https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Lots of layoffs coming into 2024. No matter the industry.

So much for the $70 games which i might add prevented me from buy alot of games as i feel most games are not worth it. Now i wait till they go on sale to under $50 and pick them up. With the economy slowing down and sooo many companies laying off i might just sell my PS5 and bank the money for a rainy day.

@PaperAlien yeah im asking the same too. I heard many big and small studio lay off their staff recently. Is this related to the current economic situation?

Quadruple A games want 70 bucks but cant even manage game studios

What needs an adjustment? Development budgets? Marketing budgets? The price of games?

Or is everyone being made to pay for terrible leadership choices? Embracer stretched themselves while betting on a cash infusion that didn't happen, Microsoft has been cannibalizing their sales by putting all their titles on gamepass, Sony's has been putting all their eggs in 2 or 3 big game baskets and gambling on hardware accessories that would make 90's Sega blush.

Ive said it a million times on here, Jim Ryan and Hermen Hulst should not have ascended to the roles they got at PlayStation.

Sony said PS5 was dying at earnings and no one believed them. They said no major games until April 2025 and no one believed them. Now they have laid off 900 people and cancelled a Twisted Metal reboot. Believe them. PS5 is dying.

Following this announcement I hope any offer by Sony to buy Arrowhead gets rebuffed, otherwise Sony will gut them too once Helldivers dies down and they have leeched the "profit margins".

If I was a developer, any offer to join Sony I would be like, no thanks you can't be trusted.

Closing the studio that made their lead game and franchise for psvr2 after you bought it to get your label on it, other studios need to see and react according to protect themselves and people's jobs.

The industry is on its knees due to greed, overinflated gaming budgets and poor management.
It’s an absolute mess

@Intr1n5ic nah, it’s exactly the same. It’s just two big corporates wanting to earn as much money for their shareholders as possible.

@TheTraditional I worked at Liverpool Studio as the UK community manager for PlayStation for a couple of years in 2005.

Some of the original Psygnosis team were still there and they let go through all the old artwork from the Amiga days (stuff like shadow of the beast) loved those guys and genuinely miss being in that office.

@Friendly Yes, that's how corporations work. How they both go about it though isn't remotely close.

@Intr1n5ic because these layoffs couldn’t have been prevented some way or another?

For instance: management taking the hit or doing something earlier differently, as Shawn Layden suggested?

Sony isn’t better than Microsoft. Nah, they’re both big corporates where the boards are these days trying mainly to appease shareholders as much as possible and they both should learn how to treat their employees what they’re worth.

@Friendly "because these layoffs couldn’t have been prevented some way or another?"

Some of them maybe, but neither of us know what the full story behind them are. You're assuming it's all financial and to appease shareholders, when in reality there's likely a range of contributing factors. How can you comment on what's preventable without that context? This is why I highlighted your post about Microsoft because we can comment on that. They spent just shy of 70bn on a publisher and immediately put 1900 people out of work. That's preventable, and in no way comparable to this. You can do whatever gymnastics you want to try and lump them in the same boat, but Microsofts example is just ruthless.

A hypothetical scenario for you regarding this story. Let's say London Studios spent the last 5 years working on something and what they achieved in that time is complete garbage. They've spent a huge amount of money, wasted a ton resources, and failed to deliver on the product they pitched to Sony and were greenlit for. Are you suggesting Sony management should take the hit for their failures, or is the more logical step to cease development and shut down a failing operation?

Indie games are hurting the gaming industry because most of those games are crap and not worth purchasing.