Don't Nod Financials Result in Reorganisation and Layoffs, Cancelled Projects

" With this layoff plan, they are creating an atmosphere of extreme violence."

Uhm...violence? Really?! Layoffs suck, but I wouldn't exactly call for violence over it.

Bad enough you get laid off, don't add "arrested" to it!

This sucks, I'm part of the problem to, the type of games they make are generally up my alley but I haven't bought them, in fact I've only ever played Life is Strange from them. I'll have to support their next release

More sad news, but from a selfish perspective sadder than most because the games that failed to sell were both very good. In fact, Banishers is one of my games of the year and something that I’d like to see more of. It’s one of those games where the care that the creators put into it really stands out. It’s cold comfort, but I imagine that anyone whose name appeared in the credits of Banishers or Jusant would be an great hire for any studio.

Don't think a protest can save the jobs if the publisher lost a lot of money. If they don't have money they can't pay for labor.

That's really sad to hear. I hope Lost Records does well.
But also...
"They are creating an atmosphere of extreme violence"
I understand being passionate but that's a huge leap dude.
"They accused us of being too aggressive to speak with"
I wonder why 🤔

And yet, another game company facing layoffs. This is what, the third in just two days? Are we really headed towards another crash or will things just continue into a massive a downward spiral?

I've wanted to get Banishers, I think I would really love it. I'm glad Dont Nod exist in that AA space, but I guess I just don't buy a ton of games at or near launch anymore.

I'll admit I had no interest in Jusant. I thought it was conceptually interesting but not for me.

I dont think ive ever been compelled to play any of their games. Most are a major turnoff

Remember me? I recall playing that game way back. Tough times indeed.

Dont nod make great games and i always give anything they play a go

remember me, life is strange, tell me why, and banishers ghosts of new eden are all excellent games in my opinion

and looking forward to lost records bloom and rage

I gotta wonder if the “extreme violence” quote was not translated correctly.

Such a shame when we we have bloated AAA studios churning out formulaic sequels and double dip remakes, yet a team creating quality new an creative ideas/stories don't sell well because they don't get their efforts viewed from a fair and equalizing perspective via games media.

At some point someone needs to figure out what is wrong with the industry and fix it. We never more expensive hardware and more expensive games than ever, yet the industry is in continuous contraction. Something is very wrong with the industry and it's not the result of individual success or failure, the industry as a whole is in continuous deep trouble.

Industry’s cooked. But then a lot of industries are. Not like there’s simple fixable reasons either, there’s a whole range from Brexit, Covid, general enshittification, late-stage capitalism, cost-of-living etc. It’s scary times.

We are in a second video game crash and I will die on this hill. Never before have so many developers had so many lay offs at the same time. Add in spiralling costs and big budget failures and the evidence is everywhere.

@KundaliniRising333 The press has been fairly kind to their games, even the poorer ones - with scores often a good 25% higher than audience scores for their "non-mainstream" titles. It seems unfair to blame the press for niche titles not selling well.

The rise in production costs has just made the consequences of a lack of mass appeal that much more noticeable.

I personally believe there's a massive amount of gamers who only have consoles or PC's to get the latest COD, FIFA, madden etc and aren't interested in new IP or anything fresh or innovative.

This trend will continue unfortunately

@rusty82
This. Gamers who game for the experience, the plot and the thrill of experiencing something new are a dying breed. It’s a deeper issue, I think. Others have also mentioned it. We live in very difficult times and the struggles of the gaming industry reflect that. It’s funny, watching my favourite game (Cyberpunk 2077) becoming a reality day by day.

@awp69 probably not. The French seem to love setting fire to Paris streets and infrastructure when ever they get upset over something. The ‘Juane Gilet’ ( yellow jackets) came out in force a few years back with riots and looting and burning over several issues of French decisions.

@rusty82 thats pretty much common knowledge and true. Your average gamer only plays the yearly cods/sports games and fortnite/Roblox. With maybe the odd single player game like assassin creed thrown in there for Christmas by wives/gfs or parents who can't think of what else to get them and most definitely don't care about frames per second or resolutions

@LifeGirl FromSoft just announced pay bumps BTW. It's almost as if they release games that people want to play and Dontnod haven't had a clue since the original LIS.

@nessisonett I know that your gut reaction is to feel sorry for employees who lost their jobs. It's a nice trait to have. But you also need to realize that if studios are making games that no1 wants to play someone out there is losing money. And that's just not fair. Life is not black and white.

@gollumb82 This has always been the case. https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/best-selling-games-of-each-of-the-past-25-years-in-the-us/2900-5031/

Gameplay is the mediums defining feature, it's not surprising that people would prioritise it. Fun, exhilaration, exploration, escapism and challenge consistently rank highly in terms of gamer priorities. Games with these qualities that also have a strong narrative, world-building or characterization, with broad appeal, often become iconic. Your favourite game, Cyberpunk 2077, moved 25 million copies to date. The Witcher 3 has moved over 50. Skyrim over 60. People still long for novel games. They just have to succeed as games to break even.

@Yagami Dontnod could have been living good if they made LIS 2 with Max AND Chloe

@Weez The fact that Cyberpunk didn't sell RDR2 numbers is making me happy. I hope that despite it's massive success the head honchos over there think to themselves 'Damn. We could have sold twice as many copies by now if we hadn't ***** up the launch'.

@Weez
Those are impressive numbers and you do make some good points here. Those games you mentioned are all blockbusters that also happen to be evergreens. I think they will keep selling for a long time yet. Don’t NOD aren’t in that league and I guess it’s much more difficult to get there than it used to be (major leagues, to quote Jackie from CP2077). Games are more and more like movies- if they don’t sell well upon launch they are usually doomed.
@Gewertzx
Ah, you still sore about that? They messed it up because they unnecessarily wanted the game to play on last gen consoles. The game was amazing on launch on PC (I played it on XSX at the time and it was great). I hate to break it to you, but CP2078 or whatever it’s called is prolly also going to be very successful.

@gollumb82 Nah. The game had many bugs and unfinished features like the cop chases. Not to mention some outright missing features like car customization.

There is no need for you to become defensive. If you truly love the franchise you will hold CDPR accountable. It can only result in better games.

@Gewertzx
Yeah, much like The Witcher 3 and Skyrim. Those are huge games with lots of complex systems in place. Bugs (especially at launch) are commonplace for open world games. I tend to try to enjoy them rather than obsess over minor details. Played CP2077 on launch on XSX in 1800p/30 and completed the game without any gamebreaking bugs. The metro system that so many folks were clamouring about is finally in the game and I feel it adds nothing to it. Never once used it. It seems some gamers are very keen on focusing on the negatives rather than positives of a game these days.

@gollumb82 I think that you are forgetting what happened when CP2077 launched. CDPR was adamant that the game was going to be released only when ready and they intentionally hid the old gen versions completely and didn't allow PC reviewers to use their own footage.

And on top of all of this the game was truly just broken for many users. Steam and even SONY were offering refunds. That almost never happens. The game was pulled from sale.

#Neverforget. It can only make the sequel and Witcher 4 better.

I played banishers and it was an awesome game. Really awesome and the first game I played that made me want more side quests - so different and so interesting. A true hidden gem. Maybe marketing was very low...

When a doctor tells an obese patient to lose wieght to improve their health it's OK.
When a leaking ship drops off ballast to remain afloat it's OK.

When a company struggling with its liquidity lays off people everybody loses their minds.

The problem these days is that games are just too expensive and there are too many of them. Publishers have become too greedy. Just as an example the new Life Is Strange is £75 if you want to play it today. Respectfully they can f**K off for that price. I paid £15.99 for the original. I can 100% say the new one will be a worse game too.

Banishers came out as a full priced release. Back in the day it would have been a budget priced game £24.99, 30 at the max. Any interest I had disappeared as soon as I saw the price, and judging by this report I wasn't the only one.

Publishers are finally reeping what they have sown for years and I for one am pretty pleased. The industry needs a reset.

Awful games it's not a shock is it.

@roe add on top of that the price increase of gaming AND cost of living crisis and a lot of people are being more selective with what they buy at launch.

70s metacritic ratings are ubisoft level and won't work in today's market when the majority plays the same game and only a niche plays new games. Banished was quite unneccessarily bloated and with filler. You have to make the time count!

@Chupa_loyzer I think the problem is it’s down to business decisions but it’s not the people making those decisions that get laid off. The games that have been made are good but it’s the devs get laid off. The games however lack wide appeal, certainly not the appeal the decision makes anticipated, but they are the ones that keep their job.

I guess we're never getting that Remember Me remaster.

@themightyant lol, malfunctioning before my morning coffee. Meant to say 25%, as a rough mean increase over user scores outside of the titles that saw mainstream adoption, which are largely in lockstep. Edited to correct.

My point is precisely that though. It is pretty normal. Even quite forgiving/favourable in the case of their divisive titles. That is, it's unfair to blame the press for poor adoption. The games simply failed to resonate with a sufficiently large audience to be profitable.

Just when I thought I was out, they PULL ME BACK IN!!!!

We need Remember Me remake!

@NEStalgia I agree, but reread the article carefully and you'll spot the signs.

"...despite solid ratings on Metacritic..."

For a while now, the opinion of critics has been diverging from the general public, steadily but surely. The same has been happening in the film industry.

There's an ongoing cultural shift that hasn't been reflected in the gaming media at large, and inside dev studios for that matter. Don't Nod has fallen victim to that, but the most prominent example is obviously Firewalk.

The reported strike is another telltale sign of just how clueless these people are. There's this frankly astonishing entitlement by workers that studio heads somehow owe them a job. Jesus, the market speaks, and reality has this strange habit of eventually showing its ugly head.

"Oh, so insensitive!" Yeah, so is life, deal with it.

Look, I'm not saying that this is the only, or even the main reason these studios and projects are failing. There are too many games, they are frequently released in a bad state, budgets have skyrocketed, inflation is reducing people's buying power, and so on.

What bothers me is how people are pretending that culture has nothing to do with it; that there isn't a conversation to be had here. They can keep burying their head in the sand and see where they'll end up.

@Art_Vandelay Especially with don't nod and their themes, they naturally have a specific market that, IDK about culture shift because I'm not sure it was ever mainstream culture to begin with. Media culture maybe, Internet culture to a degree but I think their niche kind of had a very specific demographic of a particular age group of a particular zoomer to young millennial market and a particular world view of their segment. But the segment grew up (mostly) and has bigger problems now. Their themes don't have a large enough market to appeal to anymore.

But the industry as a whole, has a different problem and it's not clear what it is. Some of it is the long dev times. Like Concord a game made to match the trends of the late wiiu era launches while Nintendo's announcing 2 consoles later. It missed it's entire window if relevance. A lot connects to what Layden was saying. The money men make samey things then try to monetize it more then the market at large NEVER indicated it was willing to pay infinitely higher costs for those things. The biggest problem may be that executives have been grouping "gaming" as mobile plus console/PC since the PS4 launch era. Everything they do is under the belief that mobile financials are the achievable target. That it's all one industry. Then fortnite and genehin proves it to be true. Maybe we really are headed to a merger of mobile and traditional gaming. That would be a nightmare!

The market speaks and the numbers don't lie - the cold hard facts. Nothing STJV can do about game devs like DN and Ubi closing studios in France if they can't afford to keep them open.

@gollumb82 Couldn't help but think of you taking about cp2077 as your favorite game as I launched it for the first time with the Luke Ross VR mod on PC last night. Hooooly heck you would lose your freaking mind, it's insane, actually being in Night City. Runs insanely well in VR, granted that's on a 4090 but with these mods even that's not a guarantee. It was so impressive I bought phantom Liberty today before the modest sale ends lol. That's with full rt (minus path tracing) enabled in VR!

@NEStalgia
Oh man. I’m so jealous, but also happy for you bro 🙂 Enjoy it! I know of the mod and I tried to play CP2077 with it installed when I still had my gaming PC and a Quest 2, but Ryzen 7 and RTX3070 couldn’t handle it… Still, I can at least say that I played the game in 1440p, RTX on Ultra and the game looked glorious. It’s still the game to beat the way Crysis was for so many years IMO. That said, I think it looks great on PS5 on an OLED display and with HDR set up properly. Again, enjoy it! I played CP2077 on PC, PS5 and XSX. Put 300+ hours into it, finished the game 5-6 times and have seen all endings (including the Phantom Liberty ones). I still play it on PS5, even if only to just cruise around Night City for a while listening to my fav radio station Pacific Dreams. For context- cyberpunk is my favourite genre and Blade Runner my fav movie 😎

@Amnesiac Yea this is a shame, Banishers was an incredible game and one of the best I played in the last few years. Sad to see this happen.

They got really lucky with LIS, there's is no way they expected it to blow up like it did. Since then they've either tried to recreate the alchemy of LIS or tried things that have just not worked.

@gollumb82 People give the game so much grief, and it was never going to live up to expectations, but it's seriously such a cool game, between the theme and mixing parts of Deus Ex gameplay, it's really well put together. I'd started it on series X but it was competing with a lot of other games at the time, and naturally had to buy it on PC for the vr mod (plus great discount on new GOG sign-ups for that and Witcher 3 which I'm playing in semi 3d with vorpx. ) I'm blown away by how amazing it is in VR though. I think both the game and the VR mod have had some pretty big revisions since you tried it. Runs so well now. Better than other games on the same mod IMO. But still needs insane hardware by nature. I'm trying wukong on uevr too but getting some right eye artifacts. Looks insane though if I can fix that.

So far I've only seen the street kid into! Yeah, blade runner is still amazing. You read the original electric sheep, too?

@NEStalgia
I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t. Ditto for The Lord of the Rings (also happen to love the trilogy). Hell, I haven’t read any Witcher books and I really like the games haha. CDPR really excells at creating believable worlds that feel inhabited, alive. The grief you mentioned only manifests through haters these days. The launch was bad, but only because of the last gen versions. The PC version and the XSX version ran fine from the get-go.
Deus Ex is also one of my favourites, though my favourite is Human Revolution. I was into Unreal Tournament when the first game launched and these days the original is too outdated for my liking (I know of the mods that give the game a coat of new paint, but the mechanics are still rough). I’m currently on PS5 and even though my last foray into PC gaming went awry I will definitely give a lot of consideration where I go from here. Got a big PC library of games (GOG and Steam) so might just go PC when PS6 launches. Especially if PS6 costs $700+ which is what I expect it to. Exclusives are no longer a factor so yeah.