Business Big Tech Layoffs Megathread - Techbros... we got too cocky...

Since my previous thread kinda-sorta turned into a soft megathread, and the tech layoffs will continue until morale improves, I think it's better to group them all together.

For those who want a QRD:


Just this week we've had these going on:

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But it's not just Big Tech, the vidya industry is also cleaning house bigly:

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All in all, rough seas ahead for the techbros.
 
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Bog-standard Poster said:
This year, neither Microsoft or Sony have any AAA first-party game launching. None. 3 years into a generation. Maybe selling nothing is more profitable than selling shit?

And the flops didn't just start in 2023. Diablo 4, Spiderman 2, All of the console>PC ports have been flops, with the exception of Helldivers 2, which would have flopped had it not been for PC.

Microsoft are putting games on rival hardware to cover the cracks. Playstation are doing similar. The PS5pro will flop and the Switch 2 will flop.

The game that the industry is betting the farm on is GTA 6, releasing next year, 12 years after GTA 5 and they think GTA 6 will sell better than GTA 5, with longer legs, while not launching it on PC. lol, good luck.
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The success of the Switch 2 will be determined 100% by whether or not it's backwards compatible. If it's not, Nintendo's kind of fucked. But if it's backwards compatible, then Switch 2 will have extended life and an easier transition period because people will be willing to buy it if only to play regular Switch games on it.
 
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Ahriman said:
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More from Stellantis, but not in tech:
https://www.reuters.com/business/au...y-exit-deal-up-1500-workers-turin-2024-03-26/
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Ericsson
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ericsson-lay-off-1200-people-sweden-2024-03-25/
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Dell, not because of new layoffs but from revealing how many they let go last year, more than double what was planned.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...yoffs-hit-13-000-employees-over-the-past-year
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Anyways, layoffs seem to have mostly stopped and the above are on the fringe for various reasons. Inflation is still elevated and high interest rates are on hold indefinitely, so it's going to be a very slow year as companies will probably try to sit tight and manage with what they have left.
 
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from late tonight axe has fallen before the movie thanks Randy Pitch ford
Take-Two will get Borderlands and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands franchises, as well as Homeworld, Risk of Rain, Brothers in Arms and Duke Nukem

Embracer retains Cryptic Studios, Lost Boys Interactive, Captured Dimensions, Gearbox Publishing San Francisco (to be renamed prior to closing), including the publishing rights to the Remnant franchise, the upcoming Hyper Light Breaker and other notable unannounced game releases
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..
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no surprise but Borderlands 4 is in active development
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Terrifik said:
View attachment 5858008
News I guess we will find out later
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Not surprising. For Epic, it was always a money pit to sign those deals, and it did jack and shit for them - Literally every single person I know who used EGS early in for exclusives to get in early has just stopped, and everyone else only uses it for the free games and buys everything else on Steam. I do not know a single person who decided to primary Epic and only use Steam for games not available on Epic.

As for Gamepass, the subscription lines have probably been drawn in the sand. At this point, everyone who wants a gamepass style system is using it, everyone else is probably in the bucket of refusing on principle grounds rather than content grounds. The casual gamers they want to get in have probably never heard of 99% of the indie games they're snagging, so it just doesn't make sense to put much money into that space.

I warned devs I knew to stop designing and budgeting games on the good graces of program payouts, but some of them didn't listen, and now some of them are probably gonna be fucked and out six figures of extra spend they were expecting to recoup from those deals.
 
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Ahriman said:
The link has a few more graphs, pretty insightful.
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Yeah, as it turns out when you start threatening employees with termination if they don't start coming back to the office, they're more likely to say "fuck you" and go looking for a company that doesn't pull that bullshit. Makes for easy talent poaching for other companies smart enough to realize "oh hey, without office rental costs we can hire more expensive/skilled people and still save money!"

Eat shit, FAANG. Serves you right. I hope you lose your shirts on those office "investments."
 
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moocow said:
Yeah, as it turns out when you start threatening employees with termination if they don't start coming back to the office, they're more likely to say "fuck you" and go looking for a company that doesn't pull that bullshit. Makes for easy talent poaching for other companies smart enough to realize "oh hey, without office rental costs we can hire more expensive/skilled people and still save money!"

Eat shit, FAANG. Serves you right. I hope you lose your shirts on those office "investments."
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A lot of them were trying to walk things back slowly, thinking they could boil the frog, but its not working this time. Anecdotally, my work was trying to do the same thing - Going full remote to 2 day hybrid cost them a significant amount of senior talent. Then they announced 3 day hybrid with fixed days, and ended up walking it back a few days later. I can see in the HR systems that there were a lot of inquiries about Constructive Dismissal laws coming in, laws here mean the employer can't unilaterally change the contract and then consider it a for cause dismissal if you refuse. Judging by the ticket volume, enough people were actively making it known that it'd have probably been a registered and notified mass layoff just to deal with the people who refused.

This isn't the tech sector, just IT inside a normal org, but its telling that they can't retain these people in the economic climate we got.
 
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I've been told that when it comes to big companies, the layoffs and terminations all happen in the first quarter of the year so they can tighten the salary payouts and adjust for the year's budget. After March is over, layoffs should decrease and they'll be running their ship with a slim crew until they figure out which positions need to get filled and start hiring in the second half (possibly sooner but unlikely).

On that note, semiconductor manufacturing is an industry where laid off tech employees might apply to because the US is trying to find ways to get around the tariffs of China imports. Samsung is supposed to be opening a new plant in Taylor, TX this year.
 
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Manimal House said:
On that note, semiconductor manufacturing is an industry where laid off tech employees might apply to because the US is trying to find ways to get around the tariffs of China imports. Samsung is supposed to be opening a new plant in Taylor, TX this year.
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Not really. The vast majority of positions they are looking to fill are on the actual floor staff, not digital skillset roles. The work making the designs themselves isn't going anywhere, and much of it is already in the US to tap that intellectual pool and isn't changing. The new build out is gonna need tens of thousands of people willing to tolerate eight hour cleanroom shifts and be trained up in extremely specific niche process and procedure. Many of those positions will need to be off and graveyard hours, fabs are 24/7 operations. None of this work benefits from knowing how to make a bloated webpage, run unreal engine, or spend three weeks workshopping a button as a Business Analysist with 35 key stakeholders.

Purely on paper, you can totally retrain a willing developer or BA into a fab worker, but in practice you're also asking them to take a significant paycut and lifestyle cut. Fab workers are paid pretty damned well, but nowhere close to silicon valley levels. Similarly, the Fab simply cannot accommodate the sort of flexibility office workers are used to. Hell, if you want a fab job, you basically got to quit smoking - It'll take you a half hour just to go through the suit down, smoke, suit up process. They won't have to contrive a reason to dismiss you, your performance will tank. Work from home, four weeks paid vacation plus no questions asked flex days are just as easily out the fucking window. Its nearly inconceivable that any significant numbers of people will give all that up unless they have a literal gun to the back of their heads.
 
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Sega is selling “Company of Heroes” developer Relic Entertainment and laying off 240 employees across its European and UK-based teams, including Creative Assembly and Sega Hardlight.

The cuts make Sega the latest video game company to downsize its staff in 2024.

In a document filed with the Tokyo Stock Exchange Thursday, Sega wrote: “The business environment surrounding the Consumer area, especially in the European region, has been rapidly changing, including reactionary decline from the stay-at-home demand in COVID-19 and the economic downturn due to inflation, etc., and profitability has been lowered. To promptly adapt to these changes in the environment and improve profitability, we have decided to implement Structural Reform at our European bases and have been considering a review of the medium-term lineup, optimization of fixed expenses and improvement of investment efficiency, and review of development/sales structure and management system, and have now decided to implement the following three measures.”

As a result of the sale, Relic will become an independent studio supported by an outside investor, and will proceed with work on its current titles, including “Company of Heroes 3.”

Relic released a statement on X (formerly Twitter) stating: “To our fans, we want to assure you we will continue to support our titles, including ‘Company of Heroes 3’ – we are looking forward to the 1.6 Update in April, loaded with new content and features requested by our community.”

News of the Sega layoffs and Relic sale comes on the same day that Bloomberg reported more than 100 workers at Sega America ratified the first union contract at a major gaming company, with conditions for annual pay increases and notifications ahead of layoffs.
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News of the Sega layoffs and Relic sale comes on the same day that Bloomberg reported more than 100 workers at Sega America ratified the first union contract at a major gaming company, with conditions for annual pay increases and notifications ahead of layoffs.
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Many such cases. You have to wonder what the Sega workers were expecting if they ratified. They had to have known that the hammer was going to drop as soon as they started agitating.

I worked maintenance on heavy equipment as a contractor a few years back, and got a contract for a gig up north. Right as I got hired, the Teamsters (a Union known for being the last employer of Jimmy Hoffa) were trying to get the regular employees to vote on organizing. Well, corporate sent down a few guys who sat the employees down and showed them that their facility made up about 3% of the overall profits of the company, and left it at that. Long story short, no Union.
 
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