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Confirmed: Silicon Knights laid off half their workforce, working on requested sequel

M

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Update

BY2K said:
http://kotaku.com/5855314/silicon-knights-cuts-half-of-staff-refocuses-on-one-of-its-most-requested-titles-for-the-next-generation

Massive layoffs hit Too Human and X-Men: Destiny developer Silicon Knights last week, cutting the Canadian developer nearly in half after an unnamed publisher pulled out on a project the team was working on, the company told Kotaku.

That unnamed project is still under development, the developer said.

"Last week Silicon Knights experienced layoffs due to extended contract negotiations falling through with a potential partner," the developer told Kotaku. "We are currently in discussions with other potential partners. The recent Ontario government funding is tied to future performance targets, spread out over the next 5 years, which we will meet."

Silicon Knights declined to say who the partner was, but said it wasn't Activision, who they worked with on their last game.

Earlier this week, 1Up wrote that 75 people had been let go from the company. Silicon Knights tells Kotaku that they laid off 43 employees, or just under half of its work force.

Silicon Knights has received about $8 million in government funding. Some of that money was used to build the company's staff up to nearly 100 people. The developer says they are already refocusing their energy on returning to their roots.

"The company is currently refocusing and returning to its roots, working on one of its most requested titles for the next generation," the spokesperson said.

Silicon Knights, is perhaps best known for 2002's Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. In 2008 the developer released Too Human for the Xbox 360 to a mediocre reception. Its last game, X-Men: Destiny, which hit earlier this year, was poorly received.

As recently as early last year, the company had been talking privately about continuing their work on a sequel to Too Human, a game meant to kick off a trilogy.
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-------------

All but 25 staff at the Canadian video game development studio Silicon Knights have been laid off, according to sources close to the company.

Silicon Knights has not officially confirmed the cuts, but two credible independent sources contacted us with the information over the weekend. One wrote that "Silicon Knights has had massive layoffs. They are now down to a core staff of 25 people." The other said, "It may interest you to note that SK laid off all but 25 employees today."

This outcome follows the St. Catharines, Ontario-based studio receiving three recent funding grants, totaling CDN $8 million: $1 million in 2008, invested by the Ontario Media Development Corporation, $4 million in 2010 via the federal government, and most recently, $3 million in July 2011 via the Ontario government.

Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack stated in July 2011 that the CDN $3 million investment would allow the company to improve its technology, hire 80 new people while keeping 97 current jobs and allow the company to become "self sustaining." We do not know at this stage what went wrong, nor how the studio's payroll has shrunk from 97 to 25 in three months. A source says, "I heard they laid off all of HR including Denis' wife," in reference to Joanne Dyack, SK's director of human resources.


On October 26, another source told 1UP that "you might want to keep an eye on SK in the next few days. If you were connected to many of SK's directors and producers on LinkedIn, you would be noticing a very disproportionate amount of CV updating and connection-making activity. And yes, I have heard that the worst is happening. Stay tuned." Silicon Knights' publicist responded that same day, saying "Silicon Knights is not shutting down and no layoffs have happened at this time."

On behalf of 1UP, I have been looking into the Canadian studio since receiving an anonymous tip in late July. The email came from an account seemingly registered for the sole purpose of sending the message, judging by the username "SK Whistleblower," and alleged that Silicon Knights' planned to leave out names of employees who had left the company in the credits of its latest title, X-Men: Destiny, amongst other criticisms. SK is best known for the critically-acclaimed 2002 GameCube hit Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and the 2008 Xbox 360 title Too Human.

I spent the next month reaching out to former Silicon Knights employees. Many of those who responded confirmed that they, too, had heard the rumors of their names being removed from the credits of X-Men: Destiny. When the game shipped to stores on September 27, these names were included in a "Special Thanks" section of the credits. Sources say that they were reinstated because of our inquiries to the company; Silicon Knights reps say this is inaccurate and they planned for those names to be included all along.

Since late August, Dyack has agreed to several interview requests on this topic through a publicist, but has delayed speaking, first citing a busy schedule finishing the game, then recently citing a family illness.

Silicon Knights has not responded to our requests for comment on the layoffs.
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http://www.1up.com/news/silicon-knights-layoffs

The hell :(
 
G

Grecco

Member
This wouldnt suprise me at all. Xmen Destiny wasnt very good. A shame ive been a fan of SK for the longest time now.
 
Ooccoo

Ooccoo

Member
Not really surprising with such a poor history

Cyber Empires (1992) (Amiga, Atari ST, DOS)
Fantasy Empires (1993) (DOS)
Dark Legions (1994) (DOS)
Gex (1994) (3DO) (enemy design and animation) [4]
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996) (PlayStation, Windows)
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem (2002) (GameCube)
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (2004) (GameCube)
Too Human (2008) (Xbox 360)
X-Men: Destiny (2011) (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS)
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Only Eternal Darkness is decent in this list and Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. GEX wasn't too bad.
 
S

Speedymanic

Banned
Well that sucks and there goes any hope of a new Eternal Darkness and sequel to Too Human. (what? I thought it was decent for what it was, would have liked a sequel with the numerous problems ironed out)
 
G

Gravijah

Member
Ooccoo said:
Not really surprising with such a poor history



Only Eternal Darkness is decent in this list and Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. GEX wasn't too bad.
Click to expand...

personal feelings aside, i don't see how twin snakes isn't "decent"
 
S

StuBurns

Banned
It's sucks so many people are out of work, hopefully Ubi will grab a healthy chunk of them.

SK are awful though, this was looming for years.
 
L

Lothars

Member
Ooccoo said:
Not really surprising with such a poor history



Only Eternal Darkness is decent in this list and Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. GEX wasn't too bad.
Click to expand...
the best games on the list is Eternal Darkness, Blood Omen and MGS Twin Snakes.
 
F

Father_Brain

Banned
Is it true that Destiny was in development for over two years (albeit originally sans X-license), despite looking like it was only in the works for half that time?
 
R

Ridley327

Member
With that few of staff left on, I'd have to think that they're concluding their business before shuttering the doors for good.

What a strange and sad decade they had.
 
B

bryehn

Member
SatelliteOfLove said:
Canadian voters found out just where their tax money was going.
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I can't believe a business with an essentially failing/losing track record got that kind of scratch in the first place.
 
G

Goldmund

Member
The one thing that would always keep me from commenting on their questionable games was the fact that Dyack seemed to value hedging home-grown talent from the big bad world out there, in spite of their actual talent. Like a father would. I gave my nods.
 
C

Cow Mengde

Banned
Ridley327 said:
With that few of staff left on, I'd have to think that they're concluding their business before shuttering the doors for good.

What a strange and sad decade they had.
Click to expand...

Who's better off? Rare or SK? Rare's making money now at least.
 
Elginer

Elginer

Member
What the hell happened to this studio. I mean for fucks sake, they produced some great games back in the day like Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness and Twin Snakes. I mean really, the developer has fallen RARE levels of crap. OK, that's a bit harsh, RARE did make Kinect Sports which is pretty good.

I enjoyed Too Human with its MANY MANY faults but saw that it has promise. I mean damn, talk about being left behind this gen on the graphics and gameplay department.

At this point I don't even want another Eternal Darkness from them. They will just taint the memory of how great the game was with a shit sequel.
 
UberTag

UberTag

Member
I'm sure we'll continue to fund SK with Ontario taxpayer money when the staff is reduced to Dyack and two other people working out of his basement. Predicting a "10-year development cycle" for his next ambitious project.

If not UBI, I hope Capybara is able to rope in anyone with talent that was let go.
 
T

Totobeni

An blind dancing ho
ShockingAlberto said:
Not at all surprising. X-Men Destiny was a mess and I can't imagine any publisher is eager to partner with them.
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Well..Ninja Theory is a studio that release big budget shitty games that bombs but still get biggest publishers in the industry..SK at least made one good game long long time ago.
 
K

Kifimbo

Member
What the hell happened to this studio. I mean for fucks sake, they produced some great games back in the day like Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness and Twin Snakes.
Click to expand...

They lost Nintendo supervision.
 
R

Roto13

Member
Well they haven't really made anything particularly good since Twin Snakes. It sucks when people lose their jobs, but developers don't stay afloat by taking seven years to make two shitty games.
 
P

pa22word

Member
Damn. Even though I'm not a big fan of these guys' games, stuff like this is sad to see. I hope everyone ends up okay.
 
T

Tallshortman

Member
SatelliteOfLove said:
It kept people employed for a bit. That's good.
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The thing is it's usually better that those people are employed in the long term than given a crutch that will only last so long. You don't want to spend all that money and then have those employees go on unemployment less than a year later.

Would have been better to give this to a promising, smaller studio than an overblown one limping along.
 
R

Ridley327

Member
Totobeni said:
Well..Ninja Theory is a studio that release big budget shitty games that bombs but still get biggest publishers in the industry..SK at least made one good game long long time ago.
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The big difference is that Ninja Theory wasn't engaged in a high-profile lawsuit with the developer of the most popular middleware engine, severely souring relations with other publishers in the process.
 
N

Neuromancer

Member
The email came from an account seemingly registered for the sole purpose of sending the message, judging by the username "SK Whistleblower,"
Click to expand...
This made me chuckle. Yeah I would guess that to be the case.
 
T

Tallshortman

Member
Totobeni said:
Well..Ninja Theory is a studio that release big budget shitty games that bombs but still get biggest publishers in the industry..SK at least made one good game long long time ago.
Click to expand...

...What? Heavenly Sword and Enslaved were not shitty games. The only thing they have in common with SK is that they both have bombed commercially.
 
J

jax (old)

Banned
I saw the SK developed Marvel game on shelves. I think that was it. I never read about it here and I kind of shrugged.

Its dyack. The only losers here are the poor employees and the canadian tax payers. I can't believe they got a grant. Fuck, it should have been a better/another studio.
 
E

Empty

Member
this thread was the first time i realized x-men destiny had released. i assumed it was still coming in 2012 sometime.

anyway commiserations to the people laid off, hopefully they find work somewhere else in the canadian games industry, and maybe at a place without an egomaniac in charge.
 
M

Matt

Member
[Nintex] said:
Last time I checked Nintendo's financial report they still owned a small bit of SK for whatever reason.
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The value of what they owned was too low to even make it worth selling, plus no one was buying.
 
C

Codeblue

Member
Not at all surprising. I don't think I've liked a single original game by the studio, but I hope everyone lands on their feet.
 
M

Mama Robotnik

Member
Blood Omen and Eternal Darkness were transcendent. Twin Snakes was very enjoyable.

Where oh where did it all go wrong? Parting ways with Nintendo, perhaps?
 
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