It's possible that two Activision-tied studios, Radical Entertainment and Neversoft, have been serving pink slips to their employees.
According to Kotaku sources, Radical, developer of last year's open-world action game Prototype, might have let around 90 members of their staff go. A lone source suggested to Kotaku that the alleged layoffs might have had something to do with the Disney and Marvel deal, which killed one of its current projects.
The number on possible Guitar Hero developer Neversoft's layoffs is shaky at best, but we did grab comment from Activision regarding both of these studios. As you can imagine, the statement is as hard and cold as a super frozen scoop of ice cream (or my mother's heart sans the rusty nails and barbwire.)
Activision Publishing continually evaluates its resources to ensure that they are properly matched against its product slate and strategic goals. In 2010, the company’s sku count will be smaller than in 2009 driven in part, by a decrease in the number of music-based games we will be releasing.
As we discussed on our earnings conference call yesterday, we are directing our resources against the largest and most profitable business segments, and as part of this initiative, we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities. At the same time, we are increasing our digital/online capabilities as we expect that digital/online will continue to become a more meaningful part of our business model in the years ahead.
Source: Layoffs Hit Activision Studios, Radical, Luxoflux, Neversoft Affected [Gamasutra]
Source: Rumor: Prototype Developer Radical Cut In Half [Kotaku]
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Contest:
9:30 PM on 02.11.2010
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Still my sympathies out to the families of the laid off. Tough times. Tough times.
I'm so torn.
Blizzard and Infinity Ward are making all the money right now. The rest are writeoffs waiting for the blade to drop.
Oh. Oh my God.
I want to party.
No, i thought we would be surfing in the road of perpetuity.
Didn't you hear? Kotick took all the money from MW2 sales and filled his 8 pools with it.
I suppose this is better than letting the bubble burst in the future and shutting down whole studios. Still, a lot of talented people lost their jobs.
I love activision.
I do, however, wish that Activision hadn't taken the property away from Sierra. I liked their logo on the box better. What happened to Sierra? Did Activision kick them all to the curb also, or are they still publishing?
Prototype could've seriously been the best game ever. It's a mediocre sandbox game with crappy controls and unoriginal missions and some of the worst, most laughable writing ever in a game.
it's still playable, but one playthrough was more than enough for me. what really irked me is that the powers become a novelty after a little because the missions are so unimaginative.
Neversoft have done the bare minimum to expand on Harmonix's idea.
And Radical have, looking at their Wikipedia entry, done very little over the last 18 years to really push gaming at all!
25 Guitar Hero games in 2009, and here's what you get!
Especially since Prototype was the best sperm you ever produced.