The last game from Canadian developer Silicon Knights, X-Men Destiny, was not received well at all, and did little to restore a once beloved studio’s image after its last divisive release, Too Human.
1UP reports Silicon Knights has been hit with massive layoffs, citing multiple sources informing them the company has shrunk from 97 to 25 employees. In other words, most of the company is now gone.
So far, the report has not been confirmed or denied by Silicon Knights. I contacted president and founder Denis Dyack directly, but have yet to hear back from the normally outspoken game creator.
Worth noting: the news was filed by Andrew McMillen, the same reporter who broke the story about Team Bondi’s controversial work conditions over the course of making this year’s L.A. Noire. He knows his stuff.
McMillen had apparently been trying to nail down an interview time with Dyack to discuss another topic, based on other reports that names of employees who left Silicon Knights were being axed from the credits section of X-Men Destiny prior to the game’s completion. Those names apparently then appeared in a “special thanks” section.
Sucks. I like Eternal Darkness.
I already have this quest.
Man, this is so sad. Profit and currency are destroying and regulating human imagination and art.
Eternal Darkness was awesome.... sucks big time if these guys got laid off.
Well sucks for the employees but they did a couple of Too Bad games
Industry is incredibly cutthroat. I hope they find new jobs soon.
@Tru3_Blu3: Don't fucking start with that.
Too Human and X-Men Destiny were not anywhere close to "art".
Man that is really sad. But they haven't exactly made many successful games in recent memory, it was only a matter of time.
I hope everyone who lost their jobs lands on their feet and gets a new job shortly.
@patrickklepek: Silicon Knights is BEST KNOWN for Eternal Darkness? I've always assumed they were best known for Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and its ridiculously long load times to get to the pause menu. At least, that's what I knew them from.
Nonetheless, never good to hear that people are losing jobs in this economy. Luckily, EA just opened up a shop down in Austin, so if people were up for relocating, I'm sure that they are looking for some folks.
It's a shame what happened to SK.
Too Human broke them
That does suck, this generation has not been especially kind to them. I mean 25 employees is enough to get the next project off the ground, get some funding and re-staff up but the ideal situation is to be successful enough to keep most of your staff between projects. If nothing else this supports my theory that game reviews matter for most core games.
Great. So they release two shitty games in a row, take Canadian taxpayer money that was in part supposed to be used to employ up to 97 people, and then go on massive layoffs putting people out of work and going back on what they were supposed to do. I feel sorry for the people that lost their jobs but it's hard to feel sorry for Silicon Knights or Dyack.
They better not get another fucking grant.
@Tru3_Blu3: Are you really being serious right now?
I don't know about beloved, they only made one good game (at least that I have heard of =P )
That still sucks, though. It's horrible when people lose their jobs.
I feel for anyone laid off. I wish only the best of luck to them.
I've been holding out hope for a next-gen Eternal Darkness sequel for some time. I hope they can pull through this.
Even if they are responsible for Too Human...
@familyphotoshoot said:
Just because they make some bad shit from time to time doesn't mean they should all lose their jobs and their ability to feed themselves and their families. Human flaw is is unavoidable.
After playing it, I never understood why people liked Eternal Darkness so much. At best, it's a fairly clunky action-adventure with a Lovecraftian bent and a sanity gimmick that becomes pointless once you get the "Restore Sanity" spell. Certainly, it has its fair share of interesting ideas and the execution is competently done, but is that supposed to make it some sort of landmark title?