News has surfaced that Square Enix Los Angeles and High Moon Studios have both been hit by staff layoffs.
In the case of High Moon Studios who worked on such titles as Transformers: Fall of Cybertron and the upcoming Deadpool game, Joystiq received a statement from Activision explaining that about 40 employees had been let go after finishing their work on Deadpool, which is coming out this summer. High Moon Studios' Twitter account also sent out a tweet in reaction to the news saying "Thank you our beloved fans for all the well wishes. We lost some uber talented people. Hire them! Deadpool will be a great game."
Activision Publishing said it is consistently works to align its costs with its revenues – this is an ongoing process. With the completion of development on Deadpool, we are taking a reduction in staff at High Moon Studios to better align our development talent against our slate. Approximately, 40 full-time employees will be impacted globally. We are offering those employees who are impacted outplacement counseling services.
Square-Enix also announced losses in a post to Joystiq saying:
"We can confirm that Square Enix’s Los Angeles office has eliminated a number of positions as part of the corporate restructuring scheme and this is an unfortunate situation. We are offering assistance and severance packages to any employees affected by this, we want to thank them for their hard work and sincerely wish them well in the future."
It seems that many games companies are losing staff and even going bankrupt in the case of gaming giants Atari. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning creator 38 Studios also plummeted to a quick demise late last year even though the game had relatively good sales figures. It just goes to show how saturated the market is now days and how important it really is to make a great game.
