Layoffs Confirmed at Warner Bros.' Seattle Studios

Bummer day for the video game industry. On the back of Microsoft Flight’s cancellation and layoffs at a Microsoft Game Studios office in Vancouver, there are layoffs at Warner Bros.’ Seattle studios.

Rumors of Warner Bros. layoffs started on Twitter this afternoon, and were then confirmed by Warner Bros. in a brief statement released by the publisher this afternoon.

“Due to shifting business imperatives, WB Games Seattle has made staff reductions. The group will continue to remain an integral part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.”

The company declined to provide any specifics on the “staff reductions.”

The Seattle arm of Warner Bros. includes Monolith Productions,Snowblind Studios, and Surreal Software.

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@RainbowCarnage said:

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geez, seems like everybody is laying off staff.

@patrickklepek said:

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B3! Ive sunk your battleship!

you are all ridiculous.. lol

@RainbowCarnage said:

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The bad news just keeps on coming!

NO! NOT MONOLITH!

@mrpandaman said:

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I . . I don't know the alphabet.

Damn shame. I hope this doesn't mean we won't see another proper F.E.A.R. game.

@Winternet said:

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I . . I don't know the alphabet.

Oh it's easy! The next piece of the pattern is:

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Damn I cant beleive I once wanted to work at making a video game. Seems like quite the gamble nowadays.

Leave Monolith alone you fucking assholes. They're killing that studio slowly but surely :(

cunt.

God dammit, now I'll never get my NOLF 3.

Punishment for moderate success? Could have sworn Activision had the patent on that.

@mr_woo said:

Leave Monolith alone you fucking assholes. They're killing that studio slowly but surely :(

SERIOUSLY! WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE DAMN MONOLITH?!

Dammit no Condemned 3 sigh =*( Best of luck to all these talented guys. Hopefully they can find new work at other studios.The Condemned games are probably my favorite of this gen.

Wait, is Monolith still a company or are all three of these developers just experiencing lay-offs?

If this means I don't get Condemned 3, I will cut a bitch.

And I don't want it from another studio, on an engine that's not Jupiter EX based. Like FEAR 3.

Fuck you forever, Warner Brothers.

And here I am wishing for some more Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance-style love from Snowblind.

Hey guys, do you remember when Monolith Productions, Inc. were doing their own thing, making F.E.A.R. and making a killing?

Yeah, I miss those days, too.

Unfortunately there was never going to be a Condemned 3 anyway. The second game sold like shit and it's basically a 'dead' franchise, this was confirmed by an Ex Monolith developer who posts on NeoGAF. I love that studios games and have been following them since a teenager years ago (fuck me I'm old). Even their supposedly 'bad' sequels like FEAR 2 and Condemned 2 I think are brilliant, Condemned 2 being one of the best drunken hobo nightmares I've ever played. Gotham City Impostors is a fuckton of fun as well, even now on 360 you can get a match practically anytime of the day. One of the few XBLA games to still have a pretty big community.

@laserbolts said:

Damn I cant beleive I once wanted to work at making a video game. Seems like quite the gamble nowadays.

It always has been a gamble, as Dave Lang and other ex midway employees can a test too. Most of them gave up on games and went to more "Stable" jobs. Just its a bigger one right now.

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I . . I don't know the alphabet.

Oh it's easy! The next piece of the pattern is:

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so then 4?

If news pops up later saying that Monolith was working on Blood 3 before the layoff, I will find those responsible and devour their souls.

Fucking does Surreal even exist anymore?

@Napalm said:

Hey guys, do you remember when Monolith Productions, Inc. were doing their own thing, making F.E.A.R. and making a killing?

Yeah, I miss those days, too.

The real tragedy here is that we'll likely never get BLOOD 3.

1. take studio who have succeeded in the past on their own projects

2. force them to make something out of some bullshit IP you own

3. if it fails proceed to step 4. if it hits run the ip into the ground and then proceed to step 4

4. destroy studio

That's really lame. I really like Monolith.

Blood was great, F.E.A.R was great, and other games they did that I loved that are escaping me right now. That's a real bummer.

Sucks when people lose their jobs too, but this seems normal in the game industry. They'll recover somehow.

@Brodehouse said:

Fucking does Surreal even exist anymore?

Man, that studio is . . surreal. (yeah, I'm gonna go now)

Unfortunately Blood is another franchise considered 'dead' so it's almost guaranteed they weren't working on it. Blood 2 was probably their weakest game though (even though I enjoyed it still) but Blood 1 was mostly made by 3D Realms before Monolith finished it off and they went in a completely different direction for Blood 2 whilst I preferred the direction of Blood 1 (and its locations, weapons etc)

I think it's becoming increasingly obvious that the 'old guard' Monolith are mostly gone due to all the layoffs but GCI shows that studio still has a lot of talent. I have a feeling that they may become more of a digital distribution developer for PSN/XBLA than anything else but I hope I'm VERY wrong about that. I want more of their weird, quirky single player goodness :( They're one of the few FPS developers left with their own unique style FFS.

Yet more companies that have made games I bought and really enjoyed are firing employees.

Are many other industries as temperamental as the video games one?

Zynga's doing poorly right now, so I won't say there's no justice, but this still sucks.

Hey guys, do you remember when Monolith Productions, Inc. were doing their own thing, making F.E.A.R. and making a killing?

Yeah, I miss those days, too.

@CrossTheAtlantic said:

@Winternet said:

@mrpandaman said:

@RainbowCarnage said:

@Guyzea said:

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@patrickklepek said:

@RainbowCarnage said:

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qrs

I . . I don't know the alphabet.

Oh it's easy! The next piece of the pattern is:

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Wrong, wrong, WRONG. It's very clearly 4. 2 comes after Q. Ugh, some people..

in b4 SHOGO MAD 2

Gotham City Imposters is an awesome game! There are alot of crappy developers out there making good money on awful games... Monolith deserves better!

It's always sad to see great developers take hits like this.

@Brodehouse: Keep your dumb metaphors to yourself, Brodey.

Really hurts to hear Monolith take a beating like that.

@Napalm said:

@Brodehouse: Keep your dumb metaphors to yourself, Brodey.

? Cool.

Every month there's a layoff... :(

Slow news day, but Patrick's gonna meet that quota somehow.