The ugly trend of development studios letting staff go continues today with word of Warner Brothers' Seattle Studio having to cut staff across a number of development teams. While no specific studios were named, the Seattle branch contains a number of well-known developers including Monolith Productions and Snowblind Studios.
I can only hope that there aren't very many layoffs, and this doesn't lead to something worse. Its a shame that this happened at all, but I wish everyone there the best of luck. It should also be noted that part of the reason given for the layoffs was a changing market, so go buy more videogames. If anyone gives you guff, let them know you're doing it for the hardworking developers.
Warner Bros. makes cuts across Seattle studios [Joystiq]
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Contest:
6:15 PM on 11.05.2011 | 
I just want another Dark Alliance game or some kind of spiritual successor
Microsoft did it, EA has done it, Disney, Activision, Rockstar, the list goes on.
I'm not surprised, and since the game business model seems to be fundamental-y broken, it'll continue.
Plus, guys, no studios were even mentioned.. Even though it blows for anyone to have to get canned, everyone's jumping to conclusions seems silly
Why hasn't anyone bothered to scream over Gotham City Imposters then? Monolith is developing that after all, and people seem plenty excited over that..
For all we know its Monolith, and frankly I don't know if I can blame them, since Monolith hasn't made a decent games in over a decade why this didn't YEARS ago when Monolith spend shitloads to make, and run, the crapfest that was The Matrix Online. Even after the sale to Sony they still didn't manage to break close to even with that game.
Yeah, they might be making Gotham City
Making more money than ever, but with business models so broken it's still not enough to avoid being fired!
Was going to say They might be making Gotham City imposters, but it doesn't mean that leg is even pulling the weight WB needs it too. If anything its cost them far more then a few job cuts to even keep them open at all.
Shit I'll take that as well, since they played pretty similar and were both awesome.
How the *hell* can publishers boast about record profits and then throw the development team under the bus under pretense that somehow it's costing too much money?
Publishers are obsolete and we need to be rid of them. At the very least forbid publishers from acquiring development studios, there's gotta be some way to spin an antitrust violation towards that somehow.
lrn2venusproject
www.thevenusproject.com
Reminds me a political opposite yet strangely similar Rapture. That Jaques Fresco guy could even make a passable Andrew Ryan.
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Publishers I think are ruining the industry and if they're not stopped or put in check, they're going to cause another game crash.
If you get rid of publishers, where are developers going to get the money to fund a game from? How are they going to market their game effectively? The good thing about publishers is that they can take the enormous profit from games like CoD or Battlefield and spread it around into other projects. Without publishers, it would be the studios making the FPS shooters and sports games with the lion's share of the capital. If publishers were somehow forced to disband, what would you replace that system with?
If we didn't have publishers, then we'd just end up with mega-studios, like Square, with hundreds of developers working on several titles at once, and an in-house marketing division. You'd still see mergers and acquisitions and all the same kinds of business moves.
If you ask me, part of the reason that it's such a good time to be a gamer right now is that the blockbusters like Madden or CoD allow publishers to take risks they might otherwise pass over. They're looking for that next hit, and because of the size of their war-chest, they can afford a few misses mixed in. In that regard, there are probably more studios out there than there would be if publishers were conservative, or had limited funds. That's why you see so many closures, because it's so dog-eat-dog and competitive.
What risks? Everything today is being forced to be a copycat of the latest fad. Look at what EA has done with Bioware, completely devoid of creativity now because everything is being made under a "we want Call of Duty's audience" and "the final part of a trilogy needs to be the entry point" philosophy.
The Syndicate revival, what a risk that looks to be by being just another first person shooter like the 800 other ones that have come out this year.
The only "risks" today are coming from independent studios outside of the big-time publishers, of which there are relatively few today since they get hit by a hostile takeover the moment they start to see success.
Everything was a risk, once. LA Noire, Assassin's Creed, and Uncharted were all risks. Vanquish, Enslaved, and Split/Second were risks. Even turning CoD into Modern Warfare was considered a risk. As far as BioWare goes, how do you know that's EA and not BioWare? Is that a guess, or do you have links to back that up? You can say that everything is trying to emulate CoD, but meanwhile, I see more variety in gaming than I've ever seen in my life, and I started out with the Atari 2600.
And how are these hostile takeovers happening with small, privately owned studios? Publishers make an offer and the studio owners see that money and bite. If you want to blame someone, blame the developers for allowing their studios to be bought, though I personally have trouble with telling someone else not to take sure money in a difficult economic climate. No one has to sell, unless they're publicly traded.
The most successful businesses are run by businessmen, and that's the way it's always going to be. It's a shame in a way, but it's something that's not going away, in ANY profession.