Yep. You can cut costs on other factors (where possible) like rent / licenses / infra / carpool / whatever, but sooner or later you end up laying off employees. And the US has really shitty contract/labour laws so its pretty easy. My company will probably need to downsize next year because profit isnt keeping up with rising costs & inflation, but we have pretty solid labour laws so it will probably end up relatively fine..
One thing that always boggles my mind is, how can you even foster a healthy environment for employees long-term growth when you treat them as disposable as car parts?
Larian Studios and Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma team did not make the two of the highest regarded games of this generation in a team that had to constantly worry about their long-term employment at the studio. We can all agree that these decisions are made because at the end of the day all studios operate as a business, but we've seen time and time again projects failing to break even thanks to product quality. Meanwhile, for the aforementioned examples, we had:
- Zelda Tears of the Kingdom breaking all franchise records.
- Baldur's Gate 3 making a rather niche subgenre break into the mainstream audience and smashing all expectations.
And it is not because they kept spinning the talent wheel laying off and hiring as they see fit. The teams that made those two exceptional games are teams that are highly specialized in their project requirements through trial and error with previous installments. This takes decades to build to.
As a Game Designer, I can confidently say that you can be the best game developer of all time, but you'll still need to adapt into your new environment and find your bearings when joining a new studio. This takes time and will always end up costing more in the long run.
So now we are in a situation where incredibly talented people that are specialized in the project requirements they work on being laid off, while executives slashes costs in hopes that they turn a profit in the short-term, at the same time being oblivious to the problem that the long-term employees have the most know-how than any other talent would have to the specific product of the studio.
Completely confusing and frustrating situation. Something has to change.
