ZombiePie

Earlier this week EA announced that it was sunsetting two mobile games and that it was cutting "small number" of staff attached to it mobile divisions, in particular those connected to its mobile racing games. That seems to have been a portent of what was to come as the company today announced it would be unilaterally shedding over six hundred staff, or about 5% of its total workforce. EA's CEO, Andrew Wilson, stated that the part of their logic with these cuts, as well as the amount, stems from the company "moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry." IGN reports that EA Sports, Apex Legends, Star Wars: Jedi, Iron Man, Black Panther, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Dragon Age, Skate, and The Sims will be the properties that EA emphasizes moving forward.

This has resulted in EA confirming that it was cancelling several projects that were in development. As part of that, there are several sources confirming that Respawn's unannounced Star Wars first-person shooter is dead. Ridgeline Games, the studio currently assigned to make story campaigns for the Battlefield franchise, is being shut down entirely. Criterion Games, led by Danny Isaac and Darren White, will now be in charge of Battlefield's single-player campaigns, though that leaves the Need for Speed franchise without a studio.

Projects that seem to be confirmed as being "safe" are a new Star Wars Jedi Game, Black Panther and Iron Man. Also, BioWare, which faced major layoffs in 2023 seems to have been spared with CEO Andrew Wilson confirming the studio is still moving forward with Dragon Age: Dreadwolf followed by a new Mass Effect. That was slightly surprising, but maybe Dreadwolf has a bit of the sunk cost fallacy for them. I just have a hard time seeing how a company whose last project was Anthem would survive layoffs.

CEO Andrew Wilson's total compensation during the 2023 fiscal year was $20,659,002.

In a public statement, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced it would be laying off approximately 900 workers worldwide attached to its game developing and publishing divisions. As per their statement, SIE London Studio is being entirely shut down with Firesprite also being hit with major downsizing. London Studio and London Studio have recently been closely attached and connected with PlayStation VR and PlayStation VR2, though virtual reality were not a complete representation of their gaming output.

Insomniac Games, Guerrilla Games, and Naughty Dog, Inc. all have confirmed that they have also been impacted by these cuts with Insomniac publishing the following statement on their official Twitter account:

The cuts to Guerrilla are reportedly around the 40 mark or about 10% of the studio's working staff. Several sources have confirmed that the cuts have also coincided with numerous game projects being canned, with Jason Schreier reporting that a "Twisted Metal live-service game that was in development at UK-based studio Firesprite" was one of the projects to get the axe. What is an unfortunate reflection of the importance of workplace regulations, Sony's own press release is a perfect encapsulation of the different layers of regulations regarding workplace layoffs in the United States, Europe, and Japan:

For those unaware, due to regulations, when cuts do happen, Japanese workers are given a flat three month’s severance as the regulatory minimum. Sometimes you will see corporations offer stock benefit packages with severance, but that is a best case scenario. Also, with insurance, your benefits are basically gone and you often need to rely on national programs to fill the void.

Sony as a company has been signaling that cuts were coming for a while, though, its gaming investments were not the issues as reported in their last 2023 shareholder meetings. Gaming saw multiple positive revisions in terms of raw revenue, but that was not enough to off-set Sony's financial services division plunging by 61% during the first quarter of 2023 and a a 6% decrease in revenue in its movie division. That said, Sony's movie division does seem to be turning the corner for 2024. Sony's technology and non-gaming hardware divisions have been struggling for years, their investments in cloud processing are still failing to take off, and while gaming has been a growing portion of their company portfolio, that's becoming and issue as sales of consoles plateau on the PS5. Likewise, Sony's operating income for its game and network service is decreasing, to be specific, SEI's operating income fell from ¥86.1 billion ($574.5 million) to ¥30.1 billion ($200.8 million), which is likely why they felt compelled to make moves on studios that turned out massive successes last year.

One of the most uncanny things to come from this are images of Jim Ryan visiting London Studio during his farewell tour as he gears up for a full retirement less than a week ago.

pinging @dtoast

The power of booba be strong.

This is news to me and dtoast. I knew the issues with old premium videos not working or playing had been addressed. Good to know nonetheless.

Being told this should be fix now. Is that the case for you?

Hey everyone! Balatro seems to be taking the world by storm but it seems like a lot of people are still struggling to beat the game. So, I figured I created a thread where people can share the seeds they have won in and provide tips on what to do in those seeds. Also, Balatro players have uncovered some fun seeds that provide some unique experiences or are guaranteed to drop some rare cards.

Here are some I found from the Balatro Reddit and other sites.

Battletoads

Broforce

IGN management has agree to recognize the IGN Creators Guild, which confirms that the full-time editorial staff of IGN are now fully unionized.

Well... shit. Vice.com and Vice Media as a brand seems to be completely dead. Last year Vice Media filed for bankruptcy and deployed a massive string of layoffs as it prepped a sale of itself to American investment management and private equity firm, Fortress Investment Group. Vice Media's assets include Vice News, Motherboard, Refinery29 and Vice TV. Today, Vice's new management have announced that they gutting several hundred of Vice's remaining staff and that Vice.com will no longer post new and original reporting on Vice.com.

Vice.com and its YouTube account were among the best at reporting the rise of extremism in the United States and around the world and it proved to be a jumping ground for many people in the press, including the games press, in getting a start. Vice Media also funded Waypoint before shuttering it 2023. Waypoint’s original editor in chief was former Giant Bomb staff member Austin Walker and worked alongside Patrick Klepek, Gita Jackson, Renata Price, Niki Grayson, and many others to create an absolutely incredible video game site covering all parts of the hobby alongside important news reporting about the industry.

What is especially tragic is that, as The Guardian reported in 2023, one of the original parties interested in acquiring Vice Media after it filed for bankruptcy was named GoDigital and included in its bid a plan to preserve the original scope of editorial content for each of its assets and websites. Instead, Vice Media's original CEO and ownership moved forward with filing for bankruptcy.

A source disclosed to the Guardian that GoDigital, a privately held multinational group that owns the Latino digital media company NGLmitú, music distributor Cinq Music, and more, had been in negotiations to acquire Vice, but that fell through.

In a statement to the Guardian, GoDigital said they “developed a plan not just for the survival of Vice and its brands, but for their rejuvenation, growth, and expansion” and “put in a bid that properly reflects a future where everyone has a stake”. They claimed to have “worked until the last minute to make adjustments that would help meet a productive compromise” but ultimately “the sellers and we have different values”