Square Enix confirms US, EU layoffs as part of restructuring | VGC
Publishing, IT, and Square Enix’s Collective indie games label are affected…
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[VGC] Square Enix confirms US, EU layoffs as part of restructuring
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I'm willing to bet its translation either was never in development or was one of the cancelled projects.
Sadly not surprising. You can't have 50 threads about FF cratering and expect them to not downsize in this environment. At least it's not, hey our HD games have made 50 bazillion in profit, lets cut costs.
I mean, they've sold off their western studios. They don't really need that many people in their western offices.
Its everywhere in the game industry now I guess. Sucks for us gamers and of course people losing jobs. Depressing.
Oh yes who's going to handle distribution, PR, marketing for their games in the US and Europe?
Especially sucks since this is largely self-inflicted due to SE's weird insistence on latching onto archaic 3rd party exclusivity practices
How many do they have though, and in what roles? Marketing, localization, QA seem quite important if they plan to release to a wider market as they've said they plan to focus on multiplat releases.
When I read the blurb in the financial report about rebuilding the US/EU branches from ground up, I was like "that sounds like layoffs." Didn't think it would be immediately. Sucks.
As soon as i saw the financials today i knew this was coming.
Already reached out to friends to make sure they are ok
Already reached out to friends to make sure they are ok
1. Employees are still needed for IT and publishing/localization especially in the West
2. This is one hell of a slap in the face to react with layoff news with "well they didn't need that many people anyway", what in the hell
Literally everyone I knew in the industry moved to finance or related industries a long time ago. Most of them once they wanted to start a family.
Everyone who complains about game quality, game development time etc., look no further than the bank accounts of the company executives/investors/board members who run these companies. They care nothing for game devs, gamers or the industry in general, just their yearly profits.
I'll echo what others have said - devs are treated like absolute garbage but these companies know they can always rely on new/passionate developers who are starving for work or trying to break into the industry to jump on board when needed. Disgusting...
I'll echo what others have said - devs are treated like absolute garbage but these companies know they can always rely on new/passionate developers who are starving for work or trying to break into the industry to jump on board when needed. Disgusting...
I have to think that Indie division is going to be pretty much gone. IT and publishing, I dunno, maybe there's leftovers from when they owned Eidos? Wouldn't think they could cut publishing too much when they're talking about the need to reinvest in marketing
Not surprised to see it, but I hope the layoffs aren't too severe. It definitely seems like Square is going to start consolidating around a smaller number of higher-profile titles instead of publishing 20+ games every year and being shocked when 70% of them turboflop like Infinity Strash and Foamstars did.
SE spent about as much on NFTs as one of their failed AA projects from a few years ago. That was the whole point of the investment: low-risk with potentially high reward.
The NFT stuff wasn't anywhere close to the cause of this. It's mostly Square is just rampantly overextended and putting out too many games per year for an audience that is shrinking, not growing, over time.
Restructurisation and layoffs always come in pairs. If anything, I'm surprised that people are surprised about this. Doesn't make it any better obviously.
I mean Exvius is almost 7 years old. It was never going to run forever. It kinda needs to end at some point. That's the fate of all long-running gacha games.
edit OH GOD Exvius is almost ten years old that's even worse
im just happy with dragon quest 4-5-6-7 in fucking steam finally... probably we will never see it.
This 2024 has been brutal in layoffs.
People didn't want to hear about the sales awhile back. Restructure seems necessary unfortunately.
If anything, Exvius was their mobile workhorse - they've already slashed so much of it, completely cutting almost all worldwide translations and it seems like it's running on a skeleton staff yet still brings in money for them. Dissidia Opera Omnia died for Exvius's sins.
I think they were talking more about FF7 Ever Crisis, the game that should have done well on IP alone, yet couldn't quite overcome their own monetization and messy programming. They already killed First Soldier in record time and I believe EC wasn't doing so hot on the recent sensor reports.