Playstation AAA studio is closing its doors

Sad news just continues for the evil empire of Sony. This Sony studio had about 200 employees who were working on a AAA shooter for the Ol Great Dictator.
Source

Never heard of them. And working on an AAA game means nothing when ceo's can come by and call their upcoming titles AAAA.

200 jobs down the drain. I hope they can land safely somewhere.

Yikes.... More unemployed gaming folks... How come we peasants can read the market better than cheif officers that make multiple millions of dollars a year?

A combination of failing upward, unwillingness to fire, and sunk-cost fallacy.

• Failing upward, in that these people worm their way into the corporate structure and make so many connections and are sociopaths and charismatic that they just get promoted for reasons outside of merit.
• Unwillingness to fire, much for similar reasons above; not to mention many of these companies have boards of advisors and such and can be allied to the executive. Leverage held, favors owed, etc...
• Sunk-cost fallacy in that you have spent so much time and resources cultivating this executive, you think "Well gee, I can't fire them now, I spent too much effort on this person, we have to put them somewhere".

I'm seeing a lot of this at my current company. They don't fire higher ups that make the decisions, they fire the mid-level management and then in turn when things get really bad they fire the entire team. Higher ups just get moved around, like scandalous priests in the Catholic church.

Also, again from my own experience, there's no appeal to these people in making a decent amount of money...they want to make A LOT of money. So we can shout from the mountaintop by the millions "WE WANT THIS GAME!" and they'll shout back "YEAH BUT WILL YOU MAKE US A BILLION DOLLARS!?" and our response would be "No but a few hundred million is surely enough, right?" and we are met by laughter.

And yes I know I'm being dramatic 😋

I saw this yesterday. Smaller devs should steer well clear of Sony. This is the second third party dev working exclusively with Sony has closed its doors in the last 3 months.

@last_lap: Didn't Microsoft just cut thousands of jobs across all their gaming divisions? 1900+ from Activision Blizzard alone?

Guess smaller devs should steer well clear of Microsoft.

How is it a AAA developer when it has released no AAA games (or any games at all)?

Yet another sign that the "AAA" label is meaningless.

Those were for redundant roles, but yes, jobs were cut.

But when you're absorbed into a company, you don't need two HR departments. So someone has to go.

It sucks, but I get it.

Smaller devs should just steer clear of major publishers entirely if they're not already signed up with them at this point. That big lump-sum paycheck might seem nice at first but it's a short-term deal that generally leads to a loss of autonomy and identity.

Develop for PC where there is a huge market and fewer corporate obligations with numerous ways to release and sell your game, port to console if there's demand...keep it simple. Follow the Valheim example.

@TheEroica: I think when you get overwhelmed with so many numbers and figures, it clouds judgment.

@mrbojangles25: Blame Sony. They hired them to develop a AAA making them a AAA studio. Sony bout the dumbest company known.

Saw this coming from a mile away. The writing was on the wall with those layoffs last year. This team was a little over 100 people, then they laid off over 90 people. I am surprised & shocked it took all these months for this to get officially confirmed they are shutting down.

And again everyone, games take so much time & money to make nowadays, the practice is unsustainable during these layoffs we'll see throughout the year.

@mrbojangles25: Yeah a small dev should develop for a device that has a high piracy rate.

@Miyomatic: MS bought that dev and indeed cut jobs. No studios were closed. And Sony a much smaller Corp just cut 900 jobs and closed studios. First Contact a third party dev that was paid by Sony to make PSVR2 games recently closed its doors also.

So Sony is bad for third party devs, especially small ones. Not only that but Sony has closed more Studios in the last decade then MS has.

So if you wanna SW about this you should be prepared to take your rose tinted Sony goggles off first.

And small devs should try and just make games on their own and try to build their studios instead of taking money from the big guys be it Sony, MS or even Nintendo.

@Miyomatic: Full disclosure….that was after taking on 19000 staff.

Exactly! It's where to be most successful, find the largest market, as a small developer. There's a reason independent developers favor development on PC.

I know it sucks for the developers just doing their jobs but I am glad that these big studios and publishers are failing. The egos and greed of the people on top running these businesses will be their downfalls. AAA video game industry is suffering the same problems as Hollywood where they think big budgets and flashy effects will guarantee them success just because they put in a lot of money into marketing and trailer scenes. The audiences want substance that is actually enjoyable in their entertainment.

We are seeing so many successful indie games and AA games. Gamers by the millions are throwing money at titles like Palword, Lethal Company, HellDivers 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Valheim, Sons Of The Forest, Vampire Survivors, Hades, and Risk Of Rain 2. If any of the developers loosing their jobs got any talent they can just form their own studios and have their own successes like former DICE devs making The Finals or the original PayDay devs making GTFO.

I am loving the growth and expansion of the indie and AA scene. Now we are seeing indies expand into genres long abandoned like old school singleplayer FPS and Survival horror games in the style of Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

@mrbojangles25: I mean it's not like MS has Indies shows to show off indie games or anything 🤷‍♂️

PC has the most sholeware of any device, it's literally swamped with it.

Layoffs are happening virtually everywhere in gaming, but when it happens to Sony, it’s Sony’s fault.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Gotta love fanboys.

This wasn't a Playstation studio. They were independent and Sony hired them for a live service project.

@silentchief: Blame the source mate.

Yeah PC has the most games of all kinds for sure, you're right again! And infinitely backwards compatible, too, so we can game forever. Games to infinity! I only wish we could share them all with other platforms but sadly their corporate overlords prefer walled gardens over giving their customers choice.

A lot of good devices to game on out there but PC is truly a great platform to game on.

One less generic microtransaction filled FPS. Glad these losers got their just desserts.

rip bozos

@mrbojangles25: Blink twice if Gaben is forcing you to write that 🤣🤣🤣

No walled gardens you say. Can you download Alan Wake 2 on Steam yet?

And I'm glad you agree PC has the most shovelware on it.

Poo bovine brigade. Can't even buy a break these dayzzz. lol :P

Not a Sony studio, but that's a damn shame though. AAA gaming is circling down a drain and I guess there's only gonna be a handful of players left to sustain it

Sony are obviously shaping up for better financial profits but it's a shame to see all these lay offs. It's never nice to see.

AAA studio yet never heard of them.

sad your calling them a evil empire and then say I love nintendo so stupid.

so funny how dare any company wants to make money. company's are suppose to loose money. that's this generation mind set today.

@gifford38: While Sony who invest in Chinese companies and lays off thousands of employees yet still making record profits every year, Nintendo over here hiring people and increasing everyones pay by 10%. But you do you homie, keep liking that corporate boot from Ol Great Dictator Sony.

every one has had a 10% of pay ever since biden been in. but the economy has gone up 50%. maybe these people at sony was not getting it done. we don't now the reason.

layoffs are everywhere. xbox, disney even amazon.

the world is in chaos. inflation hitting every were.

nin is a much smaller company than sony. they don't make movies or tv's or head phones ect. no one has extra money today.

Strange how this happens in the rest of the world where Biden isn't president...

The rich get richer while the poor get poorer is a general trend and has been a running theory for a long time now.

Chin up cows,Xbox studios have you covered,after all they are one of the biggest publishers on PlayStation.........JUMP IN!

Shame. Would have liked to see how the game turned out.

yes but it feels like since he been in the world went to shit. the rest of the world is in the same mind set of the left. making the poor fight among each other with racist while stealing the poor money with there crappy policies. I never been so broke in my life yet I make more than I ever have. now its affecting gaming and movies ect. lets make games and movies that does not appeal to the fans. we don't like our fans we are all bigits lmao.

@saint-george said:

Chin up cows,Xbox studios have you covered,after all they are one of the biggest publishers on PlayStation.........JUMP IN!

thats because cows still buy games. reason xbox brought there games to ps5. phil gave up on xbox players to make money off of.

its more sad the opposing system makes more money on the game they own.

heh, we gotta look on the bright side mate, there's more entertainment than ever before.

So I don't mind a game flopping every now and again, or a game pandering to values nobody has any ear for.

All of those Anita Sarkeesians that hate gaming and that hate gamers? They don't buy these games in the first place.

So they are literally catering to nobody.

lmao yup. can't wait until they layoff all those pushing politics and agenda people and get people back that just want to make the games we love lol.

Sweetbabyinc detected was a great step forward for that moment to finally happen:

Not sure of the video that prompted me on the existence of this group, but I think this is a good bit of info if you want to know more about what happened.

Video game development was just the ideal scapegoat for these kinds of movements/groups to hatch their trailer onto and ride it into destruction.

same as the new Fable. making the model they used ugly and then say we are happy gamers didn't like it.

There have been some ludicrous tone deaf statements coming from some developers, that like seeing themselves as progressive.

But then when they start losing long time fans, diehard gamers who like spending money... I hope they can come to the conclusions.

Because WB sure hasn't :p

You are not a cow then. BE GONE you imposter. Let us real cows say a prayer for the lost studio.

Guess y'all shouldn't have gave record tax cuts to the rich and shutdown the economy. But keep blaming others while we fix what y'all have destroyed. And Sony didn't give everyone a 10% pay raise, yet they did give their CEO's pay raises. Stop licking the boot of corporate greed. That's why y'all always fighting with each other and blaming everyone for your problems. Rich playing y'all like a fiddel. That trickle down economics doesn't work and never has. Get with the time ol timer, this aint the 40's no more.

This may sound a bit crazy but maybe just maybe the people who are screwing you over are not the people you are lobbying against.🤔

@gifford38 said:

@saint-george said:

Chin up cows,Xbox studios have you covered,after all they are one of the biggest publishers on PlayStation.........JUMP IN!

thats because cows still buy games. reason xbox brought there games to ps5. phil

gave up on xbox players to make money off of.

its more sad the opposing system makes more money on the game they own.

Translated..

The correct answer.

"Those poor employees." Imagine actually wanting to work for a major video game publisher. Do they not pay attention? Never heard of the forced overtime, layoffs, not being heard because there are too many people involved? Reminds me of people using the language of "Sending our kids off to war," like soldiers don't know what they get themselves into after the disgrace of the last few decades. Both have only themselves to blame.

^nailed it!

lol nailed what? fixed what we destroyed? who trump? please.

you think this is from tax cuts?

no its the fact that biden raised gas prices from 1.88 to 10 bucks a gallon for diesel to force people to by electric because he had a contract with china for electric cars. which meant deliveries halted. that's when the store shelfs was empty.

then Biden stopped drilling for oil. which stopped foreign money coming in. because everyone knows the countries that have the most resources to give have the most money.

then he opened the boarders. which now our tax money is paying for.

then he sent billions to ukraine when our borders are getting raided.

why is homeless higher than ever? why is rent for a studio 2,000 or more?

why did my rent go up 800 a month in one year? gas went up 50% electric up 50%

used cars 2x the cost. groceries up 50% I can't Blame someone for that?

but your right the rich is playing with us. they want Biden in again so they can control him.

while coursing division among ourselves

If rich was for Trump with tax cuts record then why do they still want biden while the little people want Trump back? because the rich is squeezing us for every penny.

I bet both of you don't pay bills and support a family.

If there were any doubt about your ignorance and why US has problems, look no further than yourself. The country is littered with morons like you and the fun part is that you all are too dumb to realize.😂