Who will be fired next: February reductions in GameDev

This February was marked by sad events for GameDev. One by one, companies and studios are firing hundreds of employees and closing their divisions. The list of such studios is growing day by day. Is it time to sound the alarm?

Activision Blizzard

Most likely, it all started with the scandalous dismissal stories at Activision Blizzard, when about 800 employees lost their jobs. Cuts were made to the Santa Monica head office and to their offices in Europe, Latin America and Australia. King, High Moon Studios and Vicarious Visions suffered, and the publishing team that worked on Destiny was completely disbanded. According to recent reports, King Studios' Seattle and San Francisco branches have closed.

Firemonkeys

The layoffs also affected Electronic Arts. The company "purged their forces" in the Australian studio Firemonkeys, the largest game developer in the country. About 5% (40-50 people) of all Australian GameDev workers will soon be dismissed, while the rest of the company's employees will be transferred to other positions. The Australian Developer’s Union is trying to resolve the situation more peacefully.

According to some reports, management has already dismissed a number of key employees, without whom it is impossible to maintain and develop games. It seems that EA plans to close the studio entirely.

Next Games

The Finnish mobile game developer Next Games lost $19 million in 2018. 26 developers have been redundant, and some positions have been abolished altogether. However, it's not so bad: The Walking Dead: Our World creators plan to hire new talents in the next six months.

ArenaNet

Online resource Kotaku recently reported that the developers of Guild Wars 2 are expected to be fired, but not all of them. ArenaNet is a subsidiary of NCSoft, which informed the employees about the complete restructuring of their studio and its merger with their parent company. It’s unknown how many people will be fired, but it is known that the staff of ArenaNet has about 400 people at the moment. In January, changes to the staff affected another NCSoft studio — Iron Tiger Studios, from which the "unspecified number of employees" was dismissed. Earlier, the company closed down Carbine Studios, and 50 people were left jobless.

Gameloft

"Gameloft in Minsk ceases to exist. The staff has already been disbanded," reports the Belarusian IT-resource dev.by. The French developer has deprived 50 people of their jobs by closing down their Minsk office. Moreover, even the studio premises have already been vacated and transferred to another tenant.

Where does all the money go?

Organization As You Sow, the nation’s non-profit leader in shareholder advocacy, has compiled a rating of The 100 Most Overpaid CEOs 2019. The rating includes Bobby Kotick (Activision Blizzard) and Andrew Wilson (Electronic Arts), who took 45th and 98th places.

A nonprofit organization gives its estimates based on the annual income of the CEO and a calculation that takes into account the shareholders’ incomes. Kotick's annual salary was more than $28 million, which, according to the organization’s estimates, indicates that his overpayment nearly exceeded $13 million. Andrew Wilson earns more than $35 million, which exceeds the norm by $19 million.

The median ratio between company CEO and median worker is 142:1. By comparison, Activision's was 301:1 and EA's was 371:1. The As You Sow list in general has a ratio of 300:1.

This rating was compiled in the wake of global cuts to show employees where their money is most likely to go. What is there to say? In this reality, GameDev labor unions no longer seem like a silly undertaking.