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There have already been a bunch of layoffs this year and now Certain Affinity (known for helping out with Halo and Call of Duty) has let go of 25 US-based employees.
In a message on its official website, the company announced it had made the "extremely difficult decision" to eliminate these roles. It has the most impact on the team's business operations, and is the "first time" in the company's "17+ year history" it's had to "do a layoff" like this. Here are the supposed contributing factors:
"Most significant is an industry-wide slow down in the funding of new lead and co-development projects and the reluctance of third party investors to fund games or game companies. This has made it exceptionally difficult to sign new work or secure other forms of funding."
Certain Affinity will provide support to employees impacted with severance pay and other benefits, and asks for patience while it navigates this "unprecedented event".
This studio is the same team that has previously been linked to an unannounced Halo project and has contributed to this series since the Halo 2 days (including the latest game Halo Infinite). It's also worked on major other series' such as Call of Duty and DOOM, and helped out with games like Crackdown 3. Last September it confirmed it was working on an "original FPS" codenamed Project Loro.
If we hear about any significant updates at Certain Affinity, we'll let you know.
Comments 17
I have no idea what is going on in development world at the minute with all these personnel being laid off.
Are studios in some sort of mini recession
Is this bad studio management
Is this due to over employment sometime ago
Is it cost cutting exercises
Is gaming having some sort of mini crisis, by the way game development wise I think it is this generation, some studios just can’t get their act together.
@OldGamer999 there is a long article on Eurogamer about the reasons of this situation:
https://www.eurogamer.net/what-is-going-on-with-the-video-games-industry
This is a pretty rough time for industry to say the least. This team didn't even do anything wrong yet need to lay people off because they can't find work? A team that has consistently helped in development of some of the biggest gaming series out there? That is definitely concerning for sure.
@Pigrotto
Thank you and a great read.
A good few factors there, but towards the end it was interesting that gaming is virtually not growing and needs some good stimulation and looking at 2024 it’s definitely not going to any good stimulation and probably not until 2025 when Switch 2 and GTA6 shows up in a big way that will help make a difference.
I mean Nintendo and Sony have sort of written off 2024 in a way and Xbox is Xbox.
It doesn’t mean 2024 is bad but not great from the stimulation and growth that is probably required.
@OldGamer999 I'm glad you found it useful 🙂
@Korgon i was told layoffs were always common in the industry , maybe it’s just worse now
@OldGamer999 they're firing expensive US jobs and outsourcing them at less than half the cost to India or South America.
Why do you think shoes are made in China and not the US.
@OldGamer999 @Pigrotto Whilst that article is great, I also think it misses some other aspects that we have seen in recent years that I think are also contributing.
How many games have we seen launch before they were actually in a fit state to release? How many devs have been 'forced' to make a game a certain way - whether that's make their 'IP' open world with some online 'live service' or online Single Player? How many games didn't really sell which then has a knock-on effect to how much 'budget' they have to reinvest.
That's before you consider any cancelled Projects these Publishers may have 'invested' money in. Sony for example announced they had 10+ 'Live Service' games in development - which didn't 'excite' their user base and no doubt impacted their financial 'projections'. Then we hear they cancelled 'several' including LoU Factions which had been in development for years. All that investment wasted with no product to recuperate.
In a cost of living crisis, especially as Games are much more expensive on Consoles and require a 'Sub' to play online, the games themselves aren't often 'good enough' at launch to justify the price. Arguably, they are 'no' better than last gen or the gen before games - just 'look' better. So many are Sequels that are just more of the 'same'. There are also 'remasters' of OLD games that now cost more than the SAME game basically via BC.
Forcing devs to wrap their IP into a 'Live Service' format to milk the Fans of those IP's for every bit of cash they have I think has had an impact too - how many games are no longer playable at all due to 'failed' live services - Marvels Avengers is probably the most high profile but no doubt lost money....
@OldGamer999 The whole economy is basically experiencing this, not just gaming. I know plenty of people in logistics that are cutting back on truckers and forklift drivers for the time being, just because they aren’t getting enough work to necessitate their jobs. It’s a rough world out there right now. Supply and demand and all that.
@BAMozzy yes, thank you: I understand your points.
A huge contraction of AAA devs, publishers and budgets would be good for gaming right now. I would like to see smaller studios and indies dominate the market. People that actually have a passion for videogames.
@somnambulance
Yes it’s a bit mad the economy at the moment let alone what is going on in the world generally.
I’m lucky I’m in aerospace so you can imagine that we are doing really well at the minute.
@OldGamer999 I’m in the trucking and transport industry, I support you could say, and it’s been bizarre. We’ve shifted a chunk of our focus into huge business-based jobs instead of residential services and we’ve had a phenomenal quarter so far, breaking our March sales record by a comfortable amount, which seems at odds with how our employees feel, as we’re getting constant complaints about how my team isn’t receiving the hours they expect and how they feel the business has never been slower. I sort of feel that this is a microcosm for industry as a whole this year, as many of my affiliates are sharing that they’re encountering similar problems… and if they aren’t, they’re plain down on sales, so they’re downsizing. I feel fortunate that at least sales have been great for my business this year, but it’s such an odd world right now. I hope the economy sorts itself out soon!
@BAMozzy
Live service games are not much use to me so I don’t buy them.
But if top end AAA single campaign games got released I would be buying them, that’s why I have a PS5 and Switch for their big AAA games.
@OldGamer999 In general, they are not for me either and I, like MANY others, likely have our favourite LS game we play with our friends/family. Whether that's a AAA release like CoD or Fifa or a F2P game like Fortnite or Apex.
However, the industry sees how much money these games are making on its 'Live Service' content and want their Copy, their 'easy' money and pushing Devs to create their 'Live Service' game wrapped in whatever IP skin they think will work. Hence Marvels Avengers or DC's Suicide Squad - both made by Devs with 'Single Player' historical success.
Sony had 10+ Live Service games in Development yet their Fanbase were not exactly 'excited' by this. Now we see Sony has cancelled several (inc Last of Us Factions) and lost 900 jobs. As far as we know, Sony only has 'Wolverine' in Development as a Single Player game whilst Marathon, FairGame$ etc are still expected..
The point is that Publishers have been trying to push devs into making online Live Service games and then the Players are not buying into their money grabs leading to less money coming in to 're-invest', Job losses/Studio Closures/Game Cancellations etc.
@BAMozzy
Well I’m glad gamers are not buying into these live service games and most of them flop as well.
Perhaps now they might turn focus back to single player games, like Nintendo still focus on.
@OldGamer999
By the way that doesn’t mean I’m glad employees have lost their jobs. That’s the blame of the companies getting it all wrong and poor developers losing their jobs.
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