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IGN: ~50 Layoffs at Sony Santa Monica, Project Canceled [Up2: Was Stig's New IP]
- Thread starter Jonboy
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They were over 200 last week.
Damn, really? They only make one game at a time. What were the other 150 people working on?
Come on man
SSM has their name attached to a lot of games.
gundamkyoukai
Member
Yeah but that don't mean they doing much for them .
For eg they name attached to The Order but from what we know RAD doing all the work .
I have a bit of a cold.
Hopefully most of those affected will be relocated elsewhere quickly.
Nightengale
Member
Most?
in my experience, some are lost along the way
yeah, even internally, their new IP was not widely talked about. Not saying that is the project what is cancelled (I haven't had a chance to find out).
DarkLordMalik
Member
Just need to ask, was this the only new IP or are there multiple new IPs?
Oh man, that sucks :/
Do you know how long they were actually working on it for?
LOL. True that.
Ahmad_742009
Member
are we gonna stop the hype train of their new IP ?
FuriousDark
Banned
lol! rite! i didnt like ur game and u shuld be unemployed!@ #rekt #reellife #dealwithit #welfare #urpoornow
Idiot
blastprocessor
The Amiga Brotherhood
Sorry to hear this from what is a respected studio but this is pretty standard in the IT industry. It's the equivalent of a spring cleaning 
Messofanego
Banned
They've helped with smaller games, so maybe that will stay rather than big 200+ team projects.
Kenshin001
Member
Think it's more to do with 50 people being dumped on top of the other studios he shut down and left jobless, as well as the drop off of quality of some studios since he took over. With the exception of TLoU I don't think much in the way of IP of worth has been incubated under his tenure either as Uncharted, LBP and Motorstorm were all pitched to Phil Harrison, Heavy Rain was signed by Harrison. I guess Infamous and Resistance were too. Tearaway was good by all accounts, but once again the only reason Sony have that game is Harrison's foresight. Remains to be seen what Yoshida's legacy will be but so far it's largely redundancies and mediocre IP.
criesofthepast
Member
Sucks to hear but knowing the quality of work SSM output makes me think these guys and girls will be finding work in no time. Too talented a group of people not to.
paradise_circus
Member
Yoshida gave Cerny and Naughty Dog the first PS1 Devkits for western developers.
Except we can't really lump this situation with the others in that list when we hardly know anything about all of this. Games are cancelled; new IPs (if this indeed was one) sometimes don't work out. People don't have near enough information to claim this was a bad move by Yoshida, hence why I thought it was silly that people were calling for his head specifically in this thread.
It's still shit that 50 people lost their jobs though.
Corpsepyre
Banned
I guess they realized a game with vehicles and shooting, and set in an 'open world' might not sell as well as a new God of War set in a new mythology. Do it, Sony!
Games get canceled all the time but if you're laying off 50 people a month after expanding your studio there's something very wrong with your management.
blastprocessor
The Amiga Brotherhood
The thing is it might be people that have been there for years and that whatever they were working on is nearly done.
Also we don't know if the 50 that are leaving have volunteered because of the severance package under offer...
Nightengale
Member
This isn't the first time you've pitched your arguments quid-pro-quo, but they aren't wrong, but it's always the same one-sided arguments. Sure, some games were pitched to Harrison and he passed them, but likewise you don't seem to credit Yoshida for stuff that was improved under his tenure. Harrison was only responsible up till the first Uncharted. UC2/3 & TLoU were Shuhei's.
God of War's starting point was also under Shuhei's watch, prior to WWS shuffling. That game was running over-budget, and Shuhei was the one that allowed for it to go on, in spite of that. And speaking of studios floundering under watch, Japan Studio arguably got worse in the period of Harrison's watch. White Knight Chronicles, Eye of Judgement, Kungfu Rider. Shuhei. Post-2011 Japan Studio, which was when Shuhei put Allan in, on the other hand has released games like Soul Sacrifice, Gravity Daze, TJ, Rain, etc. Even the 'I think it was bad' Demon Souls was Shuhei's greenlit project, for what it was worth. Output from Japan Studio had gotten way better since then, only difference is well... Vita games more than consoles.
Not saying Yoshida is great, far from it. He's definitely got his weaknesses, and arguably he should maintain stricter quality control. But Harrison is not as amazing as you make it out to be, or Shuhei as bad as you make him out. Honestly I'd say they're about equal at this point.
True, that's why i don't understand why we don't have further infos at this point. Someone should investigate this shit!
Yup the cancellation is not the news, and that may or may not have been the correct thing to do. Laying off 50 people from one of their top studios is the news, and that's almost certainly not the right thing to do unless they're really hurting for cash (which I guess Sony are though). It's kindof sad to see people trying to justify it at something completely normal to lay off everyone the moment a project is down. I thought the industry had moved away from that shitty practice, at least at big publishers.
Kenshin001
Member
The story is Yoshida signed off on the dev kit while Cerny was at Crystal Dynamics, which Cerny never used. Cerny later went on to work with ND on Crash Bandicoot so seems you got your story mixed up. Nice story, I don't mind if Yoshida is made Head of Handing out DevKits.
Especially if he was any responsible for choosing nihilistic to develop COD, Resistance for Vita. Lot of games including Starhawk, Twisted Metal never had the polish that we expect from Sony's 1st party studios.
Sony needs some truly compelling games like BF4, Titan Fall, Skyrim, Witcher etc. Their first party studios should be able to create games that wow people than being cheap and efficient. They are looking more like EA and THQ
Nightengale
Member
Cash doesn't make sense as the reason though.
If it was trimming down cost, it would be better to cut 5 heads each from every one of their WWS studio. Or scrap one of the unannounced external development projects.
Cutting 50 people at a go, some who are qualified and experienced enough to be a core creative member of any AAA-title, doesn't make sense if it was cost-measures. This isn't like laying off 30 programming grunts after a project ends, a lot of the talent cut off are not easily replaceable.
And it's not like SSM is at that stage anyway. 150+ of the team are still crunching away at something. Lay-offs like that happen after game ships, not prior to announcement.
And SSM is still hiring anyway. It's not 50 openings, but it's still a decent no.of openings for senior roles.
I just don't get it. When a game like God of War III sells crazy numbers who gets the majority of the money?
Surely the sales from the GOW series alone would keep 250 the people employed at Sony Santa Monica going with modest salaries for years to come.
One of these things is not like the other...
1 Sony sells 4 million PS4 systems in 4 months
2 Santa Monica is hard at work on undisclosed title, hires more employees, moves to bigger office
3 50 people layed off
Surely the sales from the GOW series alone would keep 250 the people employed at Sony Santa Monica going with modest salaries for years to come.
One of these things is not like the other...
1 Sony sells 4 million PS4 systems in 4 months
2 Santa Monica is hard at work on undisclosed title, hires more employees, moves to bigger office
3 50 people layed off
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
What do we know besides "fifty people laid off"? What was expanded and what positions were let go?
Probably some external focus group or reviewers werent happy with the direction of the new game. This is happening right after Order 1866 got luke warm reception from press. The new IP could be another 3rd person SP shooter.
SSM gotta get their shit together. They recently released a video to entice people to join the studio and now they are letting people go and cancelling games.
If the first PS4 game they announce is yet another GOW then this studio is not worth all the praise they get at Gaf.
If the first PS4 game they announce is yet another GOW then this studio is not worth all the praise they get at Gaf.
If you're trying to cut costs then yes cancelling a risky project and laying off the people who're working on it is a pretty effective way.
if the project just isn't working out but you're in a good financial position, it's perfectly possible to shut down a project without laying off people; there's got to be something you can put them to work on within a large company like Sony, until you have new project ready for full production.
And I seriously doubt they're actually hiring right now. Have they posted any job listings since yesterday? Otherwise it doesn't really count
bonus Iwata quote
Nintendo cancels projects all the time and they're not in a great position right now, but still have yet to resort to layoffsIwata said:
Nintendo is not in a great position but still a lot better off than Sony.
It's not indeed just about lay-offs. The think is that they cancelled the project and got rid off 50 people. That would indicate there won't be any project to replace the cancelled one. That's what makes this event special. Reading this thread it seems like some are honestly thinking they are firing 50 people just to hire 50 more. That's not how it works you know.
Kenshin001
Member
The only IP signed by Harrison I see that improved is Uncharted though and I think that would have happened under Harrison anyway. Which others improved under Yoshida? More to the point which IP signed by Yoshida have gotten better?
Yoshida became head of WWS in March 2008, Demon's Souls was released in Feb 2009. I don't think Yoshida was head of WWS when it started production, 11 months seems too quick. Not sure where you got he greenlit it. He did forfeit it though.
Kung fu Rider was likely Yoshida's though as it released in Sep 2010, a year and a half after he took over and Move hadn't even been announced until 2009.
You mention Japan Studio getting better, yet they just put out Knack.
Magic Mushroom
Member
Isn't that exactly what games like God of War 3, GT5, Journey, Uncharted 2, The Last of Us and Demon's Souls did? Lots of award-winning stuff there. Yeah, they have their misfires, too many perhaps, but they also have those compelling games with a wow factor, as well as more leftfield endeavours.
They dont have the wide appeal like BF4, COD, Skyrim etc. There is a reason why 3rd party games have consistently outsold 1st party titles on PS3.
Other than GT5, there is not many titles that sold well. Deamon Souls is great title, but you can't have full suit of games that only appeal to a narrow audience.
They're trimming the fat. The same as thousands of other companies. Why should the games industry be any different?
What's different is that this is a 1st party studio during the most successful console launch in history and after just a month ago they were hiring people.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Yeah, they're selling on 3-4 platforms instead of one.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Well, what positions did they hire for, and what positions were let go?
All anyone knows is "people" were hired and "people" were let go. Not much to go on.
I highly doubt SSM were working on a PS3 game. I'm certain GoW Ascension was their last PS3 project.
And SCEA working on Vita is hard to believe at this point.
Colbert
Banned
With the current business status Sony currently is in they have to cut down workforce somewhere. As long they do this balanced they will have a chance to get the turnaround and later are able to re-hire some of the lost talent. Not the best message to those that lost their jobs but that's how reality is...
family_guy
Member
Not completely fair. Those games you mentioned are on at least 4 different platforms. Other than Halo and some Mario games, I dont know of many exclusive first party games that sell above 3-4 million copies. I at least applaud Sony for having a diverse portfolio even though they won't always have mass appeal.
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