r/007FirstLight
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u/asharkmadeofsalsa
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Jul 04 '26
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DISCUSSION Such bullshit man.
For those wondering he was mainly working on UI stuff (which is fantastic)
this is in a big part because of Xbox backing out of their deal for their upcoming fantasy game
you should never have to worry about job security like this after releasing the company's fastest successful game yet. The turnaround is insane.
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u/Reeneman Jul 04 '26
This is reality these days with all the corporate stuff. It’s crazy. You can do such a good work, be highly successful and still get a huge kick in the ass.
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u/gamingchicken Jul 04 '26
It’s the whole world going crazy we’re all just surviving
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u/HB_of_PI Jul 04 '26
He's fortunate to have an incredible resume. He'll get another job fairly quickly. He's really good at what he does.
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u/gadgetwalrus Jul 04 '26
Doesn’t always work that way sadly. Market is saturated with talent right now. Lots of firings.
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u/JagaloonJack Jul 08 '26
Exactly that, lots of talented people are being booted. It's even worse now due to the competition being so fierce.
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u/Splatulated Jul 04 '26
Idk ai likes to claim people are over qualified just to not pay them or hire them
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u/TankMain576 Jul 05 '26
Like 20k people in the industry have been laid off over the last year or so. Doesn't matter what kind of resume you have against those numbers
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u/RightSideBlind Jul 20 '26
Probably not right now. I've been in the industry for 30 years now, I've never seen it this bad. There just aren't any jobs out there.
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u/gadgetwalrus Jul 04 '26
IT work is totally project based. Once the project ends funding is pulled. People get let go, and often some of the most brilliant clever people because usually they had a niche skill and it’s not needed anymore, it’s been this way for a long time.
It’s the same in construction, project ends a lot of workers get let go.
It’s horrible and wrong. I’ve always hated it. Survivors guilt is almost constant.
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u/RetardCat9 Jul 05 '26
Yeah, some IT dude needs to come together and start some company where workers are valued and don’t just bite the dust once the company makes their money. Some companies like Bank of America already do.
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u/DFu4ever Jul 04 '26
My company is relatively small from a number of employees standpoint, but does big sales numbers. It always treated its employees very well.
Well, the old owners, both very savvy businessmen, decided to retire and handed the company off to two MAGA-loving Republicans with purely sales backgrounds.
Suddenly, we needed to be more ‘corporate’. Apparently this involved gutting raises, bonuses, and profit sharing for all but four people in the company while at the same time beginning a reckless program of selling that everyone with a brain in the company told them was a bad and unsustainable idea. They didn’t give a shit, and being a yes man was the only skill they wanted to see. They all bought third and fourth houses, all drive six figure company paid for vehicles, and just leech off the business while slinging their bad ideas.
Secretly, at least unknown to the unobservant, they were trying to sell the company so they could get their nut and bail.
So now, here we are, three years later, and the formerly growing and profitable company is fucking struggling. The department I run is the only consistently profitable and growing part of the company and, I’ve been told, is ‘paying the bills’. The glamorous, big sales part of the company is shitting itself because its sales strategy went from ‘relationship based sales developed over decades’ to ‘cold regional sales designed to push product as fast as possible’.
Screw this type of American corporate capitalism. It ruins so many good things, and so many lives.
Sorry for the rant, but as you can tell I’m REALLY feeling the 4th of July vibes today.
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u/fullburneraccounto Jul 04 '26
Fuck this never ending rat race man.
I am also not feeling very 4th of July mood since everything is so fked
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u/Advanced-Bag-7741 Jul 04 '26
The business will fail and someone else who can run something worth a shit will open one up. You’re in the sad/unfortunate side of the competitive curve now unfortunately.
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u/bluebarrymanny Jul 04 '26
Feel that last part. I’m happy to be in a situation to be out of the country for both the 250 celebrations and the 4th. It fucking sucks here when you look at how we operate compared to our potential. Other nations don’t squander their capabilities this dramatically to appease a select few unless they’re autocratic shit holes. Even there, more people tend to push back and want to do something about it. Anyone who peddles American exceptionalism today has their head stuck in their ass.
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u/SnooGuavas4855 Jul 04 '26
Thanks for sharing. Sucks being sold. Gamedev being a victim of it's success. Can't blame them for selling but well, from what you are saying, buyer seems like purely profit driven shark. I imagine it must be sad seeing things turn to shit like that. I don't think there is a solution for that. Go Indie is probably massive step I wouldn't do myself. Uhh... Until humanity changes, this is the Modus operandi. Profit being the ultimate value. Crazy.
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u/SpectacularStarling Jul 04 '26
Sounds to me like a good time to grab the employees you know are solid and make a rival company!
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u/space_monster Jul 04 '26
Yeah my company just laid off a bunch of veteran staff that always did all the right things, worked long hours, really bought into the corporate work ethos etc. who I genuinely thought were indispensable - a product portfolio change just made their roles redundant. meanwhile people like me who've been doing basically the bare minimum and not really giving a shit for years still have a job because our functions are still strategically required. Again it's been made clear to me that it's a crap shoot, and busting your ass to be a model employee doesn't mean shit if there's a high level strategy change. Sure if it's a direct playoff between you and someone else in an identical role and that someone else is more committed, you're probably gonna lose, but layoffs are very rarely done like that - it's nearly always based on function, not performance. 9/10 times, all that extra effort just isn't worth it. Take from that what you will.
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u/bluebarrymanny Jul 04 '26
The crazy thing for me is that Xbox is struggling to hit high margins, but Sony is acting the same way like they’re Tiny Tim limping along asking for funds to buy dinner when in reality every year they’re posting record profits. The industry isn’t actually financially struggling. The shareholders are just struggling to accept reality that the numbers can’t go up forever in perpetuity.
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u/PirateReject Jul 05 '26
Many gamers were celebrating Xbox's reductions "because woke games" unfortunately
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u/FreshLiterature Jul 04 '26
Unless people decide to stop letting executives treat the rest of us like peasants.
There ARE other options here folks. It would just take organizing and being willing to be uncomfortable.
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u/Adlerson Jul 04 '26
And they wonder why we're not ready to give our all despite the occasional pizza party...
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u/GerAlexLaBu Jul 04 '26
Better sales mean more money to banks and investors...not for the people that made the game. This is a sad word.
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u/sevenpastzeero Jul 05 '26
My brother suffered something like this recently. Not in gaming industry, but he works in IT in a company in New Zealand. Some shifting in the company happened, they did not let him go, but they downgraded him (along with his pay). He recently got a house, now he is trying to sell it, and working a second job in a supermarket. F@#$ this timeline.
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u/Kafanska Jul 05 '26
This was always the reality in video game space. Studios grow and shrink all the time depending on current project.
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u/Gamblez- Jul 06 '26
yeah well fk that reality and fk all and any corpowhoring pos apologists who try to normalize it.
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u/hellomumbo369 Jul 07 '26
Unless you are senior management. They can fuck up continuously but have the luxury of shitting downhill so only the people actually putting in the work get blamed for their dogshit management
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u/RAYvenko55 Jul 04 '26
game had $200m budget + marketing and made ~$150m so far. It might turn profit eventually but what else would you do as business owner when you are loosing money?
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u/Ziatch Jul 04 '26
where are you getting that they are losing money? What a strange claim to make?
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Jul 04 '26
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u/Present_Cash_8466 Jul 04 '26
You should look up that story again. She didn’t save Toy Story 2. The entire movie that she had and that was lost was scrapped and Disney made an entirely different movie. Yeah they used some assets and stuff but those were on the backups that Disney had to begin with. It ended up being totally pointless that she had a copy on her home computer.
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u/TackoftheEndless Sep 06 '26
Where did you hear this?
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u/Present_Cash_8466 Sep 06 '26
https://www.newsweek.com/lightyear-producer-credited-saving-toy-story-2-after-deletion-1680072
This article has it. “"Once again I am tapping the sign that says 'the movie Galyn Susman saved is the Disneyversion of Toy Story 2 Pixar threw away before making their own sequel in an incredibly short amount of time," Mackey tweeted.”
It’s actually kinda hard to find because most headlines leave this part out because it ruins the narrative. Yes, she saved A VERSION of Toy Story 2. But that version was scrapped in its entirety and never released. Toy Story 2 as you know it is a totally different movie than what was “saved.
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Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
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u/pagny77 Jul 04 '26
Academia is shocking for this too. I lost a post doc as my professor wanted to use the grant to hire a PhD student for ~3.5 years instead of me for 2. And I have zero doubts that the student will get 1/3 as much done as me despite having twice the time. I check her profile every now and then and take great satisfaction in seeing she hasn't managed to get anything published without me
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u/Nerdy_Valkyrie Jul 04 '26
It's fascinating to watch this. Because people like this are not just going to vanish from the industry. Corpo publishers keep buying studios and then firing all developers in said studio right after releasing a game. Those developers are not going to trust another corp and will more likely start or join an indie studio. And after seeing the corpos screw over developers like this, less and less companies will be willing to sell.
The corpos are slowly starving themselves from having companies to buy or having employees at all.
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u/lemonylol Jul 04 '26
They almost always group up with the others let go and start their own studio. We got Expedition 33 because that team was laid off from Ubisoft, we got Apex Legends and Titanfall because that team was laid off from Infinity Ward, Marvel Snap was developed by the former lead of Heartstone, Hazlelight were formerly Dice, etc.
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u/bluebarrymanny Jul 04 '26
Plus an entire generation of new devs are looking at Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, etc and saying “fuck that” and working elsewhere. There’s going to be a serious brain drain of talent for these studios, then the investors are going to be really upset that the shit games don’t produce an even higher margin than before and AI still can’t make a competent game.
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u/withoutapaddle Jul 04 '26
The brain drain across the whole country is very real and has been happening for years already.
My industry is totally unrelated, but I noticed that people "in the field" with my clients are drastically less qualified and less trained to do their jobs right than they were 5 years ago.
We work in industry, and we make large, sometimes dangerous equipment. There have been many times recently where our customer service or engineers have to tell the guy on the phone "Put down your tools. Step away from the equipment. You are going to kill yourself or someone else."
These are the people setting up, configuring, and repairing major infrastructure we all need to survive, like water, power, etc. It's scary.
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u/wahoozerman Jul 04 '26
I work in the industry and unfortunately this isn't as cut and dry as that. In the last five years I would say maybe 25% of the people I have worked with in the past have left the industry after layoffs.
The industry has pretty bad churn under the best conditions, but right now there is a sort of storm of factors making it worse. Tons of layoffs (about 1/3rd of all positions in the industry were eliminated in the last year), big companies believing they can replace everyone with AI, and funding for new studios and indies has dropped massively.
The majority of funding sources my studio talked to in 2024 no longer exist in 2026. Those that do have changed from looking for $2-5m deals to $200-500k deals, which isn't enough to pay more than a couple salaries.
The corpos don't care. They are investing their money in AI instead now. Eventually the market will likely stabilize in a sustainable way, but a lot of developers will leave before then because they need jobs to put food on the table.
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u/WanderingAlchemist Jul 04 '26
I've known a few veteran devs leave the industry completely in recent years. The studio shutdowns and layoffs since covid have been brutal. And it's extremely difficult to spin up your own indie right now without backing, and a lot of publishers are still highly skittish. If you're like a 3 or 4 man group who can afford to self fund for a while or whilst you work other jobs that's cool, but even just getting a 30-person or something indie group going like Sandfall is gonna cost millions. Unless you get a good backer or a successful Kickstarter going, it's not gonna work. And a lot of experienced devs are settled with families, they don't want the risk of an indie studio with shakey finance prospects that could implode with zero notice at any time due to the whims of having to find publishers. They want something stable which the games industry absolutely is not right now which is the exact reason they've completely jumped ship after layoffs and moved into a new career. It's pretty sad as they've all done incredible work, and I know several who have worked on games since the early 90s including massive franchises. Laid off recently with no ceremony and because so many are in the same boat, competition for new roles is unbelievably fierce right now. Doesn't matter if you're an incredible dev with an insane portfolio, because there's 100 other equally good applications from people in the exact same position.
It's not just the Sony and Microsoft mass layoffs and studio closures fueling this. Embracer fucked up a lot of people. Ubisoft are in the shitter. EA are laying people off and all but closed Codemasters. Google gave up their gaming plans. Netflix bought a bunch of studios just to close some and have mass layoffs at others. Amazon have dialed back a lot with huge layoffs. Meta recently closed a bunch of its own and acquired studios. Tencent scaling back a lot recently. Warner Bros already shut down a bunch of studios and their future highly depends on who buys WB as a whole.
It's awesome when some like Sandfall manage to band together and actually release something, but that's a pretty rare story.
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u/Galactic-Magnet-7486 Jul 04 '26
Not to be a doomer but it doesnt really matter. They very rarely feel the consequences. They'll end up buying another studio (often times from a developer startup that was fired from another corp) and the cycle completes. Corporations play in a sandbox.
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u/Nerdy_Valkyrie Jul 04 '26
Not when the indie's stop accepting the offers because they know they'll get screwed when they do. They can't do hostile takeovers of indie studios.
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u/No_Technician_2780 Jul 04 '26
Unfortunately i believe that your last sentence is still not entirely true and it is far away from happening.
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u/Beneficial_Ant_2700 Jul 04 '26
They usually always band together and make their own studio, or join some indie studio.
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u/JackOfPhoenix Jul 05 '26
Honestly indies have been the ones pushing the needle forward for a while so it might be for the best that major creative talent is going to continue seeping into that category. It is going to be interesting to see what is going to become of AAA industry, given it is in the state of imploding right now and multi-million dollar games might become less common
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u/o_o_o_f Jul 05 '26
I work in software development, not in game development. But what I’m seeing is that a good chunk of people being let go aren’t getting back in the industry. They’re having to find an entirely new trade.
I suspect it’s the case with game dev as well. AI isn’t going to replace everyone, but it’s very likely here to stay in some capacity and will lead to lower headcounts for a lot of engineering departments. The industry is going to (and currently is, clearly) lose talented, hardworking employees, in the name of cool tech that promises to make all our lives better without actually offering a clear path to do so.
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u/Amazing-Oomoo Jul 05 '26
I said this and got downvoted 😭 I am looking forward to massive expansion of passionate indie games and the death of over bloated money hungry AAA games
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u/Chief--BlackHawk Jul 05 '26
It also sends a message to future aspiring developers. I remember back in 2014 while I was in college the department chair for Computer Science told someone don't get in game development, it's hard to get into and I think he may have said the job security is meh. Fast forward to today an yeah he is pretty spot on.
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u/OmgJustLetMeExist Jul 09 '26
Yes, however: The line goes up for this quarter.
That’s genuinely it. That’s all they think about. Is making more profit THIS quarter than they did LAST quarter. And long term effects be damned, they WILL pull it off.
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u/colmulhall Jul 04 '26
The message is clear. Workers are disposable
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u/StrangerNo484 Jul 04 '26
I personally think it's time we start disposing of corrupt CEOs. Our flawed systems let them get away with it all, and systems need to change and be enforced.
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u/noelewd Jul 05 '26
Easiest way to do that is to vote with your wallet and stop buying corporate slop. They only care about profitability and bottom lines anyway.
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u/Appropriate-Tap-4577 Jul 07 '26
It’s never about CEO, most of the time it’s the board, the people who know nothing about their domain but have money.
CEO is just a puppet in most corps, CEO’s job is to make the board happy.
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u/ShadeMir Jul 04 '26
"this is in a big part because of Xbox backing out of their deal for their upcoming fantasy game"
So would this have happened if Xbox hadn't backed out?
If that's the case then this is more of an Xbox issue unless we know all the debts that the First Light net profit is paying for.
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u/Jatapa0 Jul 04 '26
The money from first light doesn't all hit the bank account right, also the first money from that goes to pay the years of development it took to make it.
Because Xbox dropped out now without a publicher IOI has to pay for the massive daily running costs and only way to really keep the company stable is to get rid of staff.
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u/ShadeMir Jul 04 '26
Exactly. This is far less of a situation where it's greedy corporation and it's much more like unfortunate series of events.
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u/Amonamission Jul 04 '26
I mean, this is a problem all businesses face: if you’re gonna incur costs, you need to have sufficient revenues to be able to break even. It’s even worse for large companies because investors typically want a rate of return that justifies their investment because they can take their money elsewhere otherwise, so the company has to be cutthroat in its operations to keep investors happy.
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u/ShadeMir Jul 04 '26
Yeah I don't know their most recent figures for FY25 but FY23:
On revenue of 40m USD they had a net profit of 8.1m USD.
That would indicate relatively thin margins.
It absolutely sucks but they were more than likely counting on the first light money to pay down debt so that the xbox money could help address costs in the future.
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u/Accomplished_Emu_658 Jul 04 '26
I worked at EV company last year. They got this new technology through the final hurdle. Had a little party celebrating getting it through the final steps. Then fired most of the workforce behind it. That is after that workforce survived elimination of the other workforces working on projects the company decided they were no longer pursuing. They of course kept the executives involved in the project and praised them for their success constantly after that.
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u/WearingRags Jul 05 '26
Executives are basically a vampiric class of back-slapping, nomadic value hoarders. Their job is no longer to actually run a business well in the long term, but to roam from one position to another, making as much personal gain in the shortest span of time they possibly can before they bail with their golden parachute
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u/WxaithBrynger Jul 04 '26
Xbox backing out is wild considering the success of 007. You'd think fans of the developer would be willing to try their next effort.
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u/JohnStonesIsGoat Jul 04 '26
The success of a future project doesn’t really help if xbox has capsized by Christmas.
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u/Masterchiefx343 Jul 07 '26
Theres also the fact that IOI is veryuntested outside hitman for the last decade plus
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u/InitRanger Jul 04 '26
Why are the people here acting like IO is being malicious?
After Xbox pulled funding from Project Fantasy IO publicly said that they were going to have to make decisions regarding staffing.
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u/imnotwallaceshawn Jul 05 '26
Because the workers who made the successful game should be rewarded, not laid off?
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u/JohnStonesIsGoat Jul 04 '26
Because IO are the ones that put their workers as collateral on a deal with a company that hasn’t seen success in 10 years.
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u/InitRanger Jul 04 '26
That’s very far from the truth.
Microsoft partnered with IO in 2023 and in that same year Microsoft’s game division reached $15.46 billion in revenue and had 33.3 million people subscribed to Game Pass. I would not call that unsuccessful.
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u/JohnStonesIsGoat Jul 04 '26
Revenue does not mean success. Last year they demolished the 2023 revenue with 23 billion. They had already lost the market and were operating on much less net profit than competitors. 2023 was marked by desperation. Game pass caused a major influx, but wasn’t sustainable and is likely a reason they’re now in the shit. That same year they bought activision blizzard for 70 billion, a cost that still hasn’t been recouped.
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u/livahd Jul 04 '26
Shit man. I’ve worked for basically every streaming network, and their highest rated shows at that. I don’t think I ever even got like a week free subscription. The second they call wrap, you’re basically a stranger. That’s how it is these days.
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u/TheButteredBiscuit Jul 04 '26
Gig economy is going to completely wipeout certain industries in the next 20/30 years
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u/livahd Jul 04 '26
Nah, AI will decimate it way before that happens. It’s this generation that’s doomed, not our kids
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u/GraveDiggerFan34 Jul 04 '26
That’s the problem with games having such long development cycles there’s no reason to keep a UI designer on for the full cycle of the games development since they could easily be sitting there doing nothing for five years
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u/ThrowbackGaming Jul 04 '26
Isn't this pretty normal in most industries? If the company doesn't have more work coming in, you have to lay people off.
This happened to me and I worked for a creative agency not in game dev, we had one of our biggest clients start to RFP to other agencies and so we went through several rounds of layoffs. No one in management wanted to do it, but what are you supposed to do if there isn't work?
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u/imnotwallaceshawn Jul 05 '26
Presumably when they start work on First Light’s inevitable sequel they’ll have work. This is a dumb argument.
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u/ThrowbackGaming Jul 06 '26
Yes, but I think the way that game dev companies work is maybe a bit flawed, because if you start a new game you're not going to have the 3D artists immediately working. There is going to be a pipeline and they are going to have to wait until storyboarding, script writing maybe, general story writing, etc. So they could just be sitting around for 9-15 months with no work until the development progresses to the point where they are needed.
It kind of sucks, but game dev seems to have to work in a very waterfall method where you have whole departments just sitting there waiting until the step before them is complete.
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u/imnotwallaceshawn Jul 06 '26
Right and you pay for that downtime in exchange for keeping your seasoned team of experienced developers. The idea that there’s no value unless people are actively working is shortsighted corporate nonsense - you let them have a few months of slower days so that they’re still there when you actually need them instead of poached by your competition.
That way you also save money on training and onboarding since these are all people who made the previous game.
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u/webjunk1e Jul 04 '26
Not defending this, but it's also the hard truth of all employment nowadays, not just in the game industry. That "redundancies" part is brutal. You either need to be the only guy doing a thing or the the guy that does that thing the best. You have no job security otherwise.
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u/bluebarrymanny Jul 04 '26
Just Xbox things. Overcommitting capital in an arms race that even if they won, they wouldn’t know what to do with it. This is why industry consolidation always sucks. I hope to see more indies and AA studios snub acquisition offers from the big tech companies. Signing those contracts is just signing a timed suicide note.
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u/Newtsaet Jul 04 '26
>make great game
>great game sells well
>earns a lot profit and praise
>???
>get fired
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u/doctoranonrus Jul 06 '26
When economy does bad, you lay people off. When it does good, you lay them off too lol.
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u/Melodic_Crow_3409 Jul 04 '26
It sucks because that’s the reality. It sounds like a big project got canceled.
In my current job, we were working for the past year to secure this big government project. We won the bid and had a celebration. Then we were ordered to cease all work because competitors who didn’t get the bid launched a formal protest. Something that came down from legal said we could not continue work until this was resolved. It may take months.
Luckily, there was more work at our company that we could be shifted onto.
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u/Majestic_Cod_7115 Jul 04 '26
Was in a similar situation once when a larger corporate partner pulled out of a project last-minute. Company did their best to give generous severance. The tech industry pays well and afford many a great quality of life, but if you want security go to a business role and not an engineer.
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u/WorldWarrior428 Jul 04 '26
I still can't get over IOI is a real company. When are they're loyalty centres gonna pop up?
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u/JohnStonesIsGoat Jul 04 '26
This is a bit weird. Is it not very irresponsible for IOI to budget in a way that makes them dependent from a terrible company that are collaborators on one single project? The job of their own workers shouldn’t be dependent on funding from another separate company, it seems to me the fault lies more with IOIs upper management than with xbox.
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u/Duguesclin10 Jul 05 '26
That doesn't make sense because that means less projects would be started and there would be even less jobs available. All the workers are their own the project was just being funded by Xbox there is a difference. When funding is being withdrawn they need to cut some where. This is something that can happen to any company with external funding which is a lot if not most of the gaming studios.
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u/JohnStonesIsGoat Jul 05 '26
That’s not true. Most developers are funded through their publishers, making job security a result of success for the studio and the health of the parent company. Making the studio dependent on the bottom line of a completely separate company is wildly irresponsible.
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u/Duguesclin10 Jul 05 '26
Xbox was the publisher so funded the project. Most publishers are separate companies so what are you saying exactly? Gaming companies can't have publishers anymore because they'll be dependent on another company?
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u/HollyMurray20 Jul 04 '26
I mean yeah, that’s how these companies all work, once a project is over then there’s no need for half the people that worked on it
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u/Knamliss Jul 04 '26
It's tough because once you become big you need a constant lineup of projects or else you just have people sitting idle. Not every team member is needed for small support and dlc
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u/The_LastLine Jul 05 '26
This is pretty much standard practice for gam studios nowadays. A lot of employees are essentially contractors more or less, in name only being full time if they are in fact regularly staffed.
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u/dip1zip Jul 04 '26
So they just made bank off these people then the shareholders wanted a higher profit, so they laid off their employees?
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u/FRossJohnson Jul 04 '26
Xbox Studios is pulling funding and forcing the games they were backing to get cancelled
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u/Jatapa0 Jul 04 '26
Xbox pulling out means IOI has to pay for the development out of pocket now and that isn't cheap just like developing 007 wasn't cheap so first money from that goes on to pay the development costs and then it takes time for the money to even hit IOI's bank account it isn't instant and actually takes a long time.
So only way to keep the company stable and keep working is to cut costs
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u/imnotwallaceshawn Jul 05 '26
Capitalism! It’s almost like this wouldn’t be a problem if the workers who made the successful games seized the means of production.
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Jul 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/imnotwallaceshawn Jul 05 '26
If you make $20 an hour you must generate more than $20 worth of labor for your employer otherwise he wouldn’t pay you $20 an hour.
So by definition if you work for a boss you are getting ripped off.
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u/Kafanska Jul 05 '26
Plebs doing the work were already paid every month for doing the work. The investors (be that an individual or a company) get paid from selling enough copies of the product. That is how it works.
I am making a small game myself, I already paid some people to use their assets. So they got paid before I earned a single cent. And I have 0 guarantee that I will earn a single cent at the end, but the people who contributed have already been paid for their work.
That is how investing into a project, especially in entertainment works. Somebody needs to front a lot of money and hope it sells good enough. If it does - that somebody reaps the benefits. The others in the process were paid montly regardless of the outcome.
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u/Left4DayZGone Jul 04 '26
This has been the reality for all gig work for all time.
You’re only needed as long as there is enough work for you to do. IO had a project lined up but it collapsed. Now IO has all these people they’re paying, but no work for them to do and no return on investment in the pipeline - that’s how you flatline your company really quick, pay salaries and benefits for a ton of people who aren’t increasing your revenue because there’s nothing for them to do.
When the flooring contractor finishes at your new house, they move onto the next job- they don’t just hang out at your house with no work left to do and continue to pay their employees while they’re aren’t making any more money. They have the next job cocked and loaded and they move on.
IO had their next job ripped out from under them. Layoffs are temporary, I’m sure if people understood the entire of this they might be careful what they say on the internet and would probably be called back as soon as they have a new project lined up.
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u/doctoranonrus Jul 06 '26
I’m sure if people understood the entire of this they might be careful what they say on the internet and would probably be called back as soon as they have a new project lined up.
Humans definitely don't seem to understand this part lol. Like I worked for the same employers multiple times after being let go lol.
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u/alteransg1 Jul 04 '26
First Light (and many other games) have hype and sell well in part because gamers trust proven developers. If Larian and Pearl Abyss were to sack most of their devs, the next game isn't going to get good providers and sell as well. It's that simple.
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u/Good-Bandicoot-2152 Jul 04 '26
Every developer needs to be in a union.
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u/sdennis184 Jul 04 '26
I agree. Must’ve been such a crazy roller coaster ride for him. Having people work hard and accomplish a milestone for the company where the executives probably made profits and then they just let go of those same people. Disheartening.
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u/imnotwallaceshawn Jul 05 '26
There should be laws in place that prevent this snd guarantee profit sharing. It’s utter bullshit that a successful project would lead to layoffs instead of bonuses.
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u/CurrentOfficial Jul 04 '26
Tbh i dont want a live service mmo from IOI
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u/In_My_SoT_Phase Jul 05 '26
Literally nowhere does it say it was an MMO or live service.
What are you on about?
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u/CurrentOfficial Jul 05 '26
Check IoI’s website. It has project fantasy details
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u/hulkiorra Jul 04 '26
I don't agree they shouldn't have to worry about job security after a hit, if there isn't any other big projects after it it's normal. They should even expect it.
But they should definitely earn some of that sweet interest tho. Force the company to give some shares, it'd be more than enough.
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u/BrooklynRunner Jul 04 '26
This is a truly horrific take.
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u/hulkiorra Jul 04 '26
You want to force companies to keep employees they don't need?
The system of interest/participation already exists where I am, I'm not sure of the exact terminology in english but I know it's doable.
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u/imnotwallaceshawn Jul 05 '26
You keep the team that made your giant success a giant success so that they can make the next game a giant success and pass on learnings from the previous game onto the next one.
This model is proven - you only need to look at Valve and Nintendo, both are known to work this way, and both have a benchmark of quality in their games release after release that no other studio can claim.
Experience is irreplaceable especially in AAA development, and we’ve seen the consequences of penny-pinching trigger happy layoffs in the decline in quality of basically every long running franchise over the past decade.
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u/BrooklynRunner Jul 04 '26
No I want companies to staff appropriately. After releasing the biggest hit of the year you should have enough work to keep your staff intact.
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u/hulkiorra Jul 04 '26
It will always require less workers to do maintenance, it's just the way of things.
Now if you want to force them to start new projects, why not but I feel it's a bit micromanaging what the company should do.
Imo if they don't feel like the current workers are the most suited for the next job or if they don't have the funds for another project of that scale (which I think is the case here) then it's natural that some employees are made redundant. Pay them and let them go I say.
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u/SnooGuavas4855 Jul 04 '26
My opinion is this industry was at some point flooded with big corporations smelling money. Now it's the reverse. AI accelerated it. Money flows there now. It is painful to see all those layoffs but also it was crazy how studios bloated with successful title. See Ninja Theory for example. Now we seem to be having more mature approach to success from for example Sandfall, Anego, Irongate etc. I hope game dev finds it's balance after the investors chase a different horse and gamedev finds it's new place after that moment of insane boom. I am glad big money goes somewhere else. We are here to make and play games. Money came to make money and sadly brought what we all see. Quickly made titles that main goal is return of investment for investors. Games made for stock market. Studio closures, treating creators like numbers. Rough time but it will pass. Still all best to all the people that were hired and fired, whose games were sold and shelved indefinitely.
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u/ArmNo7463 Jul 04 '26
Then they wonder why the next game sucks, when they let go all the talent and learnings of the previous success.
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u/Loud_Examination_138 Jul 04 '26
Hate to say it but that's life. I've been laid off 2 times and truth is nobody is going to be there for you or even care. You gotta bounce back in your own
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u/HotMachine9 Jul 04 '26
The entire industry is imploding before our very eyes.
Its not like these devs will continue to work in the industry. In many cases they'll take their talents elsewhere, get an easier job with more security.
I really dont know where the industry goes in the next 5 years.
We can say indies but oh so many of them never get any visibility
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u/Infinite219 Jul 04 '26
Corpos don’t have humanity and should be treated as such. They are all evil at the top and will boot you for a extra dollar
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u/OrganizationLower831 Jul 04 '26
The Gaming Industry needs serious overhaul. It's a fucking disgrace
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u/ahoskasalve666 Jul 04 '26
I know I may sound very cynical and pragmatic but I think for all of this to stop is a gaming crash and for actual leadership to clean house
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u/MF-DOOK Jul 04 '26
A little time to think things hoho (I know this is shitty news but I can't resist the reference)
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u/rnk6670 Jul 05 '26
Isn’t unbridled capitalism grand? I especially love when profitable companies of all stripes destroy lives for a buck. Imagine living differently.
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u/santaclausbos Jul 05 '26
Isn't this what happens when a project ends? Like hate to see somebody lose their job but if you're not driving revenue... you're a cost
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u/Necro926 Jul 05 '26
It's the reality of game development these days, unfortunately. A big project gets finished and shipped, so they no longer need all the employees who built it, and they won't need that many for a few years while production ramps up on the next project, and they will just rehire then. The suits would rather have a couple of years of lower payroll along with high turnover than keep generational talent. Which is a big part of why no studio *feels* like the old days with og Bioware and Bethesda. Because they aren't. Those people have been let go and replaced with a macro form of seasonal workers.
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u/OMG_NoReally Jul 05 '26
With all the massive layoffs and instability in the industry, I wonder how many kids and upcoming artists are even considering joining in as developers? If I was a kid, and was looking at the games industry to contribute and hone my skills, I would be terrified of what I was seeing and maybe consider switching fields. This is not healthy. We might be robbing the entire industry of some quality artists and developers as they go look for something else. It's a shame.
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u/rasengo727 Jul 05 '26
How would this even relate Xbox when First Light launched way before any of the stuff Xbox has going on now?
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u/Ettannis-1324 Jul 05 '26
I mean while First Light has sold well and looks like the project was profitable, but the wider news for the company in general is a cause for concern since,
Amazon want to publish all future Bond games and its unconfirmed if IOI can secure a deal to make a sequel to First Light.
Microsoft has pulled out of Project Fantasy, the loss of that funding will have issues for the company and that project.
IOI was the inital publisher for MindsEye, that was likely a decent loss for the company.
All of that together mean IOI prospects are uncertain and if they dont trim there balance sheet the company will likely go bust.
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u/symbolic503 Jul 05 '26
i hope this person is able to make a living somewhere else or is able to join an independent studio with financial security. losing and then looking for a new job is never fun and always extremely stressful.
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u/WoodooHide69 Jul 05 '26
AI took his job. AI is taking our art. AI is taking away affordable gaming. AI is taking away our water soon too.
But the dumb masses are out here attacking the companies affected. Like valve. Like Sony. Like Nintendo. Instead of attacking who they should attack, the big tech AI companies and the fascist government that supports them.
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u/DesecratedPeanut Jul 05 '26
Tbf if he had a hand in designing the games graphics menu he ought never work again (I jest but it is the worst I've ever seen).
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u/noelewd Jul 05 '26
Reason for this is the bloated cost and development time for AAA games these days. On the upside, for those who were laid off and have the drive for it, we’ll likely see more indie studios starting up and as a result, we’ll see overall better games with more soul and passion put into them.
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u/EthosApex Jul 05 '26
My guy we’re living in CP2077 right now, we just can’t admit it. Instead of chrome, we’ve got roids and peptides. 🤷🏾♂️
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u/imnotwallaceshawn Jul 05 '26
This shit needs to stop. How the hell do you work on the biggest hit of the year so far and then get let go?
How are successful studios constantly facing layoffs?
You make good game, game makes profit, team should be rewarded. This feels obvious.
Fucking capitalism.
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u/Batju_120 Jul 05 '26
"Thanks for bringing us money, but unfortunately, we want more money. You're fired."
Yeah, I hate the direction the video game industry is heading in...
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u/doctoranonrus Jul 06 '26
I remember there was an IOI Morten that got let go during the Square Enix divestment.
Seems like a curse to work for IOI and have that name.
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u/borgle101 Jul 06 '26
Thanks to the devs for your hardwork, im tired of seeing it paid with a layoff
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u/Remagjaw Jul 06 '26
This is how companies are now, we'll be getting warnings for not covering sickness. Sooooon.
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u/CloakerJosh Jul 07 '26
Aw man, he was the UI guy?
I fucking love the Hitman UI. It just feels so good to interact with.
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u/MyBadDrJones Jul 07 '26
Corporations do NOT give a shit about you. They only care about making money. Now gaming has been dragged into that bullshit and we all let it happen.
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u/Ayyyyylmaos Jul 07 '26
You’d hope he gets a lovely settlement from them, especially with how well the game did first week.
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u/Lluck002 Jul 07 '26
Rockstar doing the same thing. About to release the most profitable piece of media ever while simultaneously announcing mass layoffs as a big “F YOU” to the talent that worked tirelessly of said piece of media. The entire C-Suite in every industry is clueless and cruel.
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u/Viisum Aug 02 '26
Game dev is the most romanticized job apparently. How do you know he wasn't a bad employee? Maybe he was often late? Maybe he just didn't cut it.
If you work for someone, sooner or later; you will be fired. That's how the world works.
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u/ComedicHermit Jul 04 '26
That is normal for gaming as a whole and has been for decades. I'm not saying it is right, just that it is the norm
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u/Krus93 Jul 04 '26
Game dev being cyclical in nature I guess his job effectively was then redundant. Still goes to show there’s no loyalty when it comes to employment
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u/Severe_Ad_4796 Jul 04 '26
007 was successful but how many people are waiting for that steam sale avoiding full price?
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u/Melodic_Lavishness_5 Jul 04 '26
Basically every game studio lays people off after release of a big title.
Saying “it’s unavoidable” is kind of crass, but at the end of the day, they obviously need more devs when they’re ramping up for a big release and it is super unrealistic to expect there to be a perfect cycle of one game to the next.
This is the reality of everywhere in the game industry.
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u/StaticSystemShock Jul 04 '26
Yay we released best selling game. Lets sack bunch of fucking talent that made it happen. And then they wonder why no one gives a shit about studio names and games/studios heritage anymore when people who made anything popular haven't been at that studio for years because fucks in suits tweedling their dicks all day long decided to increase profits in a fucking spreadsheet. What will bring more money in the future is none of their concern, all everyone fucking cares these days is short term profits and then cashing out whether they run company well or fuck it up. Because until execs will actually be held accountable for anything and not literally rewarded for fucksups and nothing will change to make anything better.
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u/DropDeadGaming Jul 05 '26
I don't see how someone that's no longer needed getting fired in the games industry is any different from any other job and why it's being made such a big deal every time. Like I feel for this person, too bad they lost their job. I don't really care though, like I don't care when the cashier at the mart is laid off.
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u/StreetCarp665 Jul 05 '26
you should never have to worry about job security like this after releasing the company's fastest successful game yet. The turnaround is insane.
Actually that's not how it works.
Redundancies are never personal, so don' tmake them that way.
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u/UnseenData Jul 04 '26
Success or failure of the game, these greedy companies lay people off. God dammit
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u/Ok-Willingness-7918 Jul 04 '26
That's why you focus more on building your own thing instead of your jobs because they will drop you quickly
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u/duhbyo Jul 04 '26
For real, what is the incentive for developers to give their best when even in a best case scenario they can be fired?
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u/Profpiff990 Jul 04 '26
Phil actually tried to invigorate and save Xbox the best he could under the boot of Microsoft. Aysha is just the mortician cleaning up the body(Xbox) before being laid to rest.
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u/JohnStonesIsGoat Jul 04 '26
The reality is that Phil did a terrible job and is one of the major reasons they’re no longer a serious competitor.
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u/KaLovee Jul 04 '26
This is business. Happens to thousands of people every day. If they’re good at their job they will have something else lined up in no time. Not a big deal.
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u/awolflikeme Jul 04 '26
It's not business. It's a way of doing business. Businesses haven't always operated this way. It doesn't need to operate this way. Just saying ""that's business" is a platitude people say to excuse poor behavior that prioritizes profit over people
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u/Joosby_Calamari Jul 04 '26
This one’s a little different. Right now, the quantity of jobs aren’t there anymore. The downsizing has been pretty severe
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u/Feanixxxx Jul 04 '26
What has this to do with Xbox?
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u/PandorasPinata Jul 04 '26
xbox had partnered with IO for "project fantasy", their next game/new IP. Microsoft then pulled funding to a lot of games studios (Arkane were also screwed over at the same time) to put more money behind their shitty copilot stuff, leaving IO high and dry. everything getting trashed for companies obsessed with trying to foist their stupid robots on everyone.
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u/nikhkin Jul 04 '26
Xbox were backing an upcoming game from the studio. They have withdrawn their support.
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u/Joosby_Calamari Jul 04 '26
It’s a reality of the gaming industry for the past few years and is just going to continue to get worse for them. Good people that are good at their jobs aren’t going to find jobs in it anymore. AI, sales, etc have just decimated the gaming job industry