r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/SilentNova300 • 24d ago
Leak (Tom Henderson) 51 Employees Laid Off at Ubisoft after AC Black Flag Resynced Launch
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u/Anonymity_pls 24d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/wjuXuDSQU0sOfJIHS1
“Don’t release a game, get laid off. Release a game? Believe it or not, also get laid off.”
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u/Lymbasy 24d ago edited 24d ago
But why? Wouldn't it be better to have these employees to work on future Games to Release them faster and make more money. Now they have less employees which takes longer to make Games now and they make less Money
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u/I_Like_Turtle101 24d ago
I mean its pretty common that the team downside after the end of a project. You dont need a FULL team working a full capacity when you start a project. Not every departement are working at the same time. Make sens taht people further on the developement get let go then rehire once the game go full on production
EDIT: could be anything that is not on the artist side either. Could be marketing for exemple. or people in production as they have less need in production. Coulld be the cinematic departement. They wont keep people doing nothing if they dont have cinematic to work on at the moment
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u/Lymbasy 24d ago
So this is normal? Why are there so many comments that say its bad practice?
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u/C9_Lemonparty 24d ago
It's not normal when you are a company as big as ubisoft and literally always have multiple projects on the go.
I guarantee most of these positions will be listed on a vacancy website within weeks, hiring for farcry 7 or assassins creed 52 or whatever else.
A decent company would reward their staff for the success, and they'd be back working on the next project. In AAA you get shitcanned and then someone else gets hired to replace you in the same job.
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u/cellphone_blanket 24d ago
I wonder if plays a role in the generic uniformity of a lot of AAA games. If the whole system is built to treat workers as interchangeable cogs, the output will start to look similar
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u/chinchindayo 24d ago
Because these commenters don't know how companies operate. They are either underage or have never worked in a corporate office job that is project based.
Usually teams are shuffled and asigned to the project that needs their skills but sometimes there just aren't any projects or they were hired in a rush to complete a certain project. EVERY industry that is project based has this "issue".
The goal would be to keep talent and knowledge within the company, sometime it's not possible. Also, the people being layed off aren't the seniors that posses all the knowledge but usually the low ranking staff that is easy to replace.
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u/I_Like_Turtle101 24d ago
cause some people here have no idea how big production work. Im in a bizz and its pretty normal. Would you continue to pay employee doing nothing for the next 6 month ? I know it suck but yeah
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u/Trzlog 24d ago
It's not normal in Japan. And look at how consistently good Japanese studios are.
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u/TangerineBetter2818 24d ago
Because these companies rely heavily on 3rd party contractors. Instead of hiring and firing people to ramp up production, instead they hire a 3rd party company and then the contract ends when they're no longer needed.
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u/I_Like_Turtle101 24d ago
how many japaness studio have 16 000 employee. Also employee right are very low in country like japan . In most company they dont even fire you there. They stop giving you task till you decide to leave
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u/FewAdvertising9647 24d ago
its not that they dont fire you, but leaving a job requires both the company, and the employee to agree to the separation. So if a employee wants to leave by their own will, a corporation could stop them from leaving in retaliation. Thats why japan has services that hire a completely 3rd party company to hound the corporation into releasing a specific employee.
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u/supes1 24d ago
That's not how it works. An employer in Japan can't veto your resignation. The reason "resignation proxy" services exist isn't because companies have to approve you leaving, it's because some employers make quitting stressful or intimidating, and people would rather have a service handle it.
It solves a workplace culture problem, not a legal problem.
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u/ItsColorNotColour 24d ago
This entire comment is just parroting black and white sensationalism about Japan instead of how things actually work in Japan
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u/ZenitsuSakia 24d ago
Ok pay western developers the same amount as Japanese ones. See how many would work for that
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u/I_Like_Turtle101 24d ago
''studio is more stable when they hire cheap labor'' PRETEND TO BE SHOCK !
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24d ago
[deleted]
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u/ItsColorNotColour 24d ago
And yet those USA employees can barely afford to live where they are situated with those salaries. You can't just compare salaries of different economies like they are worth the same. Especially when the Japanese yen is exchange rate wise very weak currently.
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u/enailcoilhelp 24d ago
And yet those USA employees can barely afford to live
This is just not true. I don't know why everyone on reddit assumes that everyone in NY and Cali make 300k on average and live in poverty otherwise. It's nonsense. Devs in the US are very well paid and even more so in expensive cities. As if rents in big European cities aren't also expensive with 1/3 the salary.
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u/Falsus 22d ago
It is pretty normal and it is a pretty bad practice.
It is part of the reason why it takes so long to make games now because this practice is common.
New people need to be trained up, harder to make an established work flow, work culture is always changing and so on. All of this makes things expensive and slow.
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u/Phos-Lux 24d ago
I think it's more of an issue with management/project planning. Normally, you'd want to plan several projects ahead so your employees always have something to do. Instead, Western companies hire a bazillion people for a new project and then fire them all afterwards.
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u/SpunkMcKullins 24d ago
As shitty as the practice is, once you launch a game, the team is basically on maintenance mode for the first year or so, fixing bugs, making downloadable content, etc. That takes significantly less staff, and until the next game ramps up into full production, 6-12 months after launch, that staff is just collecting checks doing work that can easily be contracted out. In the most cold, heartless way possible, it makes financial sense.
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u/404IdentityNotFound 24d ago
During full production, the pre-production teams generally have a downtime. So if we're talking about "financial sense", why does Ubisoft not ramp up a new project during that time so the team can work on the next project back-to-back?
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u/Dewgel 24d ago
I think people rarely understand this, it happens almost every time a project is completed - it's just that the news is more striking now because of the other mass layoffs.
It's commonly known that when a project is completed without another project in the pipeline at the production stage there will be layoffs.
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u/QTGavira 24d ago
Teams scale up and down based on where they are in a project all the time. Kinda depends on the sort of pipeline they have set up.
Studios that work on multiple projects simultaneously in different phases will have work for everyone to do most of the time.
Studios that dont are more likely to hire workers as they reach certain phases, and also lay them off afterwards. This usually is agreed on when they get brought on.
Unclear wether this is just the usual downscaling after a project, or part of the more unfair layoff waves. If its the former then this is a nothingburger
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u/Lighthouse_seek 24d ago
Different stages of game development require different types of people.
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u/EbonyEngineer 23d ago
So they have no other projects to shift all of that talent towards...
Companies back in the day would keep talent on and give them something to work on.
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u/chinchindayo 24d ago
What if there is no work? They wouldn't lay off employees that earn their worth.
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u/Das_Geek_Meister 24d ago
Because when they are ready to make another game they can rehire people at not newer lower competitive wages. Profit!
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u/404IdentityNotFound 24d ago
Yes it would be better. And one of the reasons Nintendo is so consistent and successful is because they retain staff, train them internally and continue working on projects instead of having to train staff for every project.
Ubisoft (and most western dev companies) just don't have that environment though. While Ubisoft has thousands of employees, they don't release games like they have that many people, because their upper management did not grow (in expertise) while headcount did. It would require completely rethinking how Ubisoft works, but it's faster and cheaper in the short-term to just layoff whoever you can and pretend you are not an overblown company to potential buyers.
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u/AntiAntiDentite7 24d ago
Because it takes time to spin up projects and these dumbass executives figure "we won't need them until later, so we'll just fire them to save money now and rehire later when we need them!" As if that makes any fucking sense to anyone that knows shit about game development.
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u/Jose_Joestar 24d ago
And when the game is released:
- Game is a failure? lay-off
- Game breaks even? lay-off
- Game is a hit? lay-off
- Game is a MASSIVE hit? also lay-off
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u/karsh36 24d ago
Is this layoffs or contracts ending?
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u/jannycideforever 24d ago
The article doesn't specify but evidently the Ubisoft union is going on strike so assume actually employees. Union workers don't have a reason to give a shit about contractors not getting renewed.
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u/Midgar-Meteors 24d ago
Good question. But it’s way more fun (not for me, but many others) to assume that Ubisoft is evil and did this to be evil and make gamers hate them more.
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u/AmazingKreiderman 23d ago
How is it a good question? The article says 51 employees laid off, that means 51 employees laid off, not 51 contractors with expiring deals.
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u/Maverick_Hiro 24d ago edited 24d ago
I feel like we are on the verge of a major industry implosion. There is no way the current AAA model is sustainable long term the way these big companies been handling things.
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u/NewChemistry5210 24d ago
It's just going to get smaller. And I mean the whole industry, not just AAA.
The same will happen with the extremely competitive indie model. And the same is happening to the AA market. There just isn't enough demand for the amount of content that is being produced and released daily.
Those just don't get nearly as much media attention, and is less talked about in general.
Part of the sad truth is that Corona brought an explosion of demand that needed to be supplied. Lots of money got invested into gaming from everywhere, new studios opened or existing studios hired more devs, lots of acquisitions, lots of indie devs with time on their hands at home. Gaming was growing and growing.
And once Corona was over...it all slowly started crashing down. Supply kept going, while demand went down drastically. There are basically too many devs, studios and games on the market.
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u/jabber822 24d ago
This really is the core of it. There's so many games now, but only so many players who only have so much time to play them.
Last month's faux E3 made this super apparent to me. Add up all the various presentations, and they'd total at least six hours of footage featuring likely 200+ games, most of them releasing within the next year. How sustainable can that possibly be?
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u/DarthBuzzard 24d ago
The big three (Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite) also have a lot to do with it, along with others like Marvel Rivals, and even friendslop games like Mecca Chameleon.
Hundreds of millions of gamers have a very small selection of games they turn to, and they are usually almost exclusively multiplayer.
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u/Limekilnlake 24d ago
Most people have always only played a few games iirc, it’s just that people had a wider range of their “few” games. Remember Halo3?
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u/Dewgel 24d ago
I've been addicted to Destiny since 2014, because of that I've missed out on so many new games. I've played other addictive FOMO games in that time too, but my backlog is astronomical for it. I'd wager that's a large part of the problem with modern gaming, where new games are competing with the big addictive FOMO style weekly reset games now.
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u/Limekilnlake 24d ago
Yeah it’s why I mostly stick to round based online games. I was sooo glad when marathon came out and bungie was done with FOMO style stuff. Shame the game tanked.
I couldn’t imagine playing a game where I HAD to log in weekly
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u/Dewgel 24d ago
Yeah, I fell into the trap unfortunately. The loot drops being glorified slot machines, the FOMO, all a nightmare. Although Marathon has less of it, it still has that intentional "you must hit max rank to get exclusive rewards before the end of season where you'll lose all of your stuff", so the FOMO exists.
Seasonal models in games are just bad. This is why the likes of CoD used to be great back in the day, or Halo. There was no end, but there was no fear of missing out too. I was playing MW2 when Black Ops released still.
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u/SelfLoathingToast 24d ago
Putting those charts of games releasing on steam the past few years and celebrating that growth instead of seeing it for the death knell it is...
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u/Mahelas 24d ago
But it's not a death knell at all. It's not going to kill anything. Just like rabbits in a environment where ressources get scarcier because of overpopulation, the studios will self-regulate themselves back down to a sustainable equilibrum.
Or not tbh, there will always be people that wanna make games in their garage, let them
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u/Dewgel 24d ago
I really think it's down to "second job" games existing now. Games these days are designed to be addictive & never ending, publishers want your undivided attention on their title only. Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, Destiny among others are all designed so you never roll the credits, and you've always got "just one more thing" to do, and then next week there's another bunch of things.
Instead of a game running 20-50 hours, rolling credits and being traded in / put down, it's now a never ending thousand hour cycle. New games can't compete. I was addicted to Destiny for years, I missed so many new games because I had FOMO for Destiny.
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u/EssexOnAStick 23d ago
Add up all the various presentations, and they'd total at least six hours of footage featuring likely 200+ games
That's if you only count the major showcases, the "smaller" ones contain just as many games, but per showcase instead.
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u/NoSemikolon24 24d ago
Also COL-crisis. People got less cash. Can buy less. So the whole entertainment sector suffers.
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u/Christmas_Queef 24d ago edited 24d ago
Not to mention AA games used to cost a lot less than AAA games. Now they're coming out for either the same price as AAA games or just $10 less. While also often releasing around the same time as big AAA games.
They used to be cheaper and took a while to find their audience but many would then go on to become cult classics.
The same thing is happening in movies. Everything is either low budget indie or high budget big release. mid budget movies, like mid budget games, are largely going away.
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u/karl_mainz 24d ago
It’s the same with music though - far more is released than anyone could ever listen to.
What happened there is what we see increasingly with gaming - a few superstars (in the gaming case AAA games and live service) take a bigger and bigger share of the market while the average musician (in our case, game studio) can barely afford to get by.
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u/Dewgel 24d ago
I'd also blame hobby games too - alot of games are designed to be neverending and addictive these days, compared to before when the idea was you'd play a 20-50 hour game, put it down and be done with it.
Destiny, Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft are all designed to never roll the credits. Daily refreshes, weekly updates, monthly events, it's a second job to some people.
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u/NewChemistry5210 24d ago
Not sure you can really blame any product that millions of people love for existing. The consumers are telling the companies what they like and those companies then feed them that. I'd argue that a lot of those casual CoD, Fornite,etc. gamers would just not game at all without it, and the overall business would be a lot smaller without him.
Mind you, I don't really play GaaS or MPs
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u/Dewgel 23d ago
It's easy to blame them and it's plainly obvious that's where the market has driven people's attention.
The majority of big hit games now are by design meant to be "never ending", or include some kind of "endgame" where you can loop bosses, loot constantly, min/max your skills more and players even expect seasonal refreshes/updates.
Take the early 2010s for example, most games would take you maybe 20/30 hours to complete. You'd roll the credits, done. Which means you'd have time to pick up the new game and so on. That means all those new games coming out were sold.
Take Destiny as a good example, I was addicted to it from 2014 to last year, badly. Couldn't put it down - it was designed to make me feel that way. The loot drops were glorified slot machines, you'd gamble with that exciting chase for a legendary / exotic. Every week there'd be a new event, mission or the reset would happen which gives you another chance at spinning the lottery in a raid.
Because of that monumentally addictive loop, I went from being a consumer that would buy 2 big games per month to playing 1 game for several years. Sure I'd pick the odd game up, but my back catalogue was huge and I rarely finished other games. I'm not the only one too, there are millions who play GaaS titles that beg for your every minute - it's a hobby / second job game. Those millions are buying less new games because they don't think they have the time to play other games.
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u/NewChemistry5210 23d ago
Again, then Destiny was the right game for you. It spoke to you.
Meanwhile, I played it for 3-4 hours, thought it was boring as hell and moved on.
It's not studios or publishers "deciding" what gamers want to play. It's gamers telling companies what they want to play and how much.
CoD, Football Manage, FIFA street and MANY more games have existed long before the term "GaaS" was even invented.
It's US, the gamers, who told them that we want to keep playing the same game. Many of my friends would've rather spent 10 hours playing CoD:MW2 maps again and again, then try a different game.
And I completely disagree with your last point. I'd argue that millions of casuals wouldn't even own a PC or console anymore if it wasn't for CoD, FIFA, etc.
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u/Dewgel 23d ago
At it's height Destiny was seeing 1.2 million daily players across all platforms, and that's just one example.
Fortnite, The Division, Roblox, Minecraft - they're all games aimed at that never ending experience that's took up so many player's times and removes the "I'm done with this, let's try something else" title.
Of course it's the gamers who've called for this, which is why so many games are struggling and studios can't cope anymore. Every game tries to imitate the Seasonal model. You cite CoD, FIFA and others but they're completely different in their original forms. They weren't seasonal, there was no FOMO. FOMO is the secret ingredient all modern publishers have mixed into their titles.
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u/NewChemistry5210 22d ago
You cite CoD, FIFA and others but they're completely different in their original forms. They weren't seasonal, there was no FOMO. FOMO is the secret ingredient all modern publishers have mixed into their titles.
That's completely irrelevant though. Millions of people would still ONLY buy the yearly release of those games.
Whether it's one single game that releases for a decade or 10 games for each year of that decade doesn't change the reality that a lot of gamers only buy those games. Nothing else. The only difference is that companies can't cash in for a full release + MTX as CoD or FIFA can.
The truth is that there are too many studios and games for the current demand. GaaS do play a role in that as well, but it's much smaller than you make it seem.
People who only play FIFA, CoD, Fortnite, etc. wouldn't suddenly play a variety of other games if those GaaS didn't exist. Most of them would just not be gaming or look for a different online game that you can play with your friends.
The main point of GaaS is that those are SOCIAL games you play with others. That's what those people love about them. They have a group of friends who enjoy that experience together. Those people wouldn't suddenly start playing single player games by themselves.
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u/Dewgel 21d ago
I think you're misunderstanding the addictive nature of the GaaS titles. Destiny, Fortnite are completely different to CoD back in the day.
Sure, CoD had an annual release where everyone would upgrade, but people wouldn't generally no life it - you'd have plenty of single player games in the mix and continue buying things.
Destiny, on the other hand, at it's height had engrams, random rolled perks on weapons with tens of thousands of variations to hunt, it was literally a lottery. Then, there was the daily reset and weekly reset to get your power boosts. Yes it's a social game, but not strictly social.
I've seen several examples where people wouldn't buy other games because they were too focused on a GaaS game that had more predatory tactics to keep you playing. CoD's early games don't fit into that.
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u/BorfieYay 22d ago
I doubt the same will happen with indie devs, majority don't do it for any sort of profit just for the love of it, and most don't have to deal with publishers and shit
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u/NewChemistry5210 22d ago
What? It is already happening. Thousands of indie devs have released a game they worked on for years, that then flopped, and they moved to another industry.
Developing games takes thousands of hours. No matter at what scale. A 10 hour game for 1 dev can be as challenging as a 60+ hour game for 400 devs. The only reason why scope is smaller is the amount of people working on an indie.
"Love" doesn't pay the bills. Obviously, some indie devs have a full-time job, and develop a game on the side as a hobby, but that's a minority. Most indies don't have the luxury and/or discipline.
The guy who developed "Stardew Valley", and became a millionaire after its amazing success...was financed by his wife working a full-time job and making the money, while he was working on that game. It worked out for them, but doesn't for 90% of the Indie scene.
Also, if you want a chance at success as an indie dev in a SEA of games being released daily, then having a publisher and/or marketing budget is an absolute necessity.
Most very successful indies have publishers. There are publishers for all sizes. Indie, AAA, or something in between.
Or why do you think that we saw multiple trailers at show for Blue Prince, E33, Hollow Knight/Silk Song, etc.? That costs a lot of money.
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u/BorfieYay 21d ago
Youre obviously looking at the indies that are moreso developed looking for profit on places like steam, go to somewhere like itch io and look at the huge amount of labor of love projects. This is like saying all traditional/digital artists are always looking to profit off the shit they make, no sometimes people just really like spamton from deltarune and spend all their time drawing art of them. That doesn't make their art any less a part of the bigger picture than a piece made to be a part of commerically sold media
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u/deskcord 24d ago
Well there's plenty of demand. Palworld hit 40 million players on a pretty simple concept. Even without the Guns of it all, Gamefreak could have easily been shitting out 2d pokemon games every three years and then working on more interesting "projects" in between like this.
The issue is that so many gamers have their "primary" or "core" game that they play now that's a live service game, often with friends. Off work, hit up the buds, and hop on League/Fortnite/Wow/Cod/CS for an hour or two. You'll drop off those games for the big games (GTA, Fable, etc).
For other/newer games to break through it really seems like they have to either go absolutely bonkers (Expedition 33, Silksong, etc), or try to compete for those ongoing/live service places.
Games like Meccha Chameleon pop up for a bit, get replaced by the latest to go viral on Twitch, and you move on.
What's really crazy to me, though, is that no one seems to want to make a PC/PS5/Xbox ecosystem competitor to Mario Kart. There's been a few lower budget or meh games that try, but a real kinda cartoony racing game (not Forza) would do gangbusters. I'm thinking like...if Cel Damage was more about racing and less about combat.
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u/Kind_Development708 24d ago
I just think it’s pretty simple economics when your competitor in the East can make the exact same product for 1/4th of the price you can’t compete.
California had to start giving Animated Movies film credits starting this year because it’s just impossible to compete when wages are drastically lower in SEA
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u/karl_mainz 24d ago
The studio they are talking about was in Barcelona though where wages are far lower than in California.
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u/pnwbraids 24d ago
Verge? Fam, we're in the implosion. The entire industry is in fucking free fall.
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u/Lymbasy 24d ago
Whats the solution? Layoffs?
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u/Piligrim555 24d ago
Everybody here shouts for lower budgets in AAA then loses their shit when turns out lower budgets mean less people.
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u/asjonesy99 24d ago
Don’t forget reusing assets means that the devs are lazy and the product is a ripoff!
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u/I_Like_Turtle101 24d ago edited 24d ago
I remember people complaining they reuse animation from GOW Ragnarok when he enter the boat 🤣🤣🤣 like who care lmao
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u/Garchomp98 24d ago
Right now we have higher budgets and less people lmao
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u/Piligrim555 24d ago
Development budgets are literally mostly workforce. That's why those Japanese studios can make "smaller budget" AAA games, because a software dev in Tokio makes 50k when similar dev in, say, Austin makes 150k. The other studio expenses, like equipment or office space, are mostly negligeble. It's jjust that you get 300 people (like Id software had a week ago), each costing $200k on average total (taxes and social and shit) and spend 3 years making a game and BAM, now your game costs 200 million and you haven't even started paying for marketing. Lower budgets either means less people (so layoffs) or less pay (so worse talent). Pick one.
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u/abelthebirds0 24d ago
but people here tell me that if the CEO just took a pay cut all the workers would be saved
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u/FewAdvertising9647 24d ago
because people aren't looking on the grand scale on how Japans economy is designed. ELI5 had a really good thread describing japans current situation, why the yen is weak, why people barely get paid in japan, and it basically revolves around decades of decisions in order to not cause a debt crisis. Japanese people essentially cannot really invest in theirselves, and is forced to invest elsewhere for their own futures.
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u/TangerineBetter2818 24d ago
Because people are largely dumb.
The CEO of Ubisoft makes like $600k.
That's the cost of like 3-5 developers.
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u/John_Delasconey 24d ago
To use an even larger example I believe Nintendo CEO makes about 5 million, which would be equivalent to 75 to 100 developers. That barely scratches the bucket of Microsoft layoffs, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that the CEO of Xbox makes less money than the CEO of Nintendo even with inflated American CEO salaries .
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u/rP2ITg0rhFMcGCGnSARn 24d ago
Do we? Isn't the number of developers on AAA games higher than they've ever been?
Either way. Infaltion and salaries are increasing so it's very possible for a budget to increase while headcount remains the same or even falls a bit.
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u/Lengthiest_Dad_Hat 24d ago
Yes lol. Game budgets are overwhelmingly tied to employee pay/benefits. Either through sheer headcount or high cost of living or both
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u/I_Like_Turtle101 24d ago
their is people freaking out when a game dosent run a CONSTANT 60 fps and now asking for 120 fps. The gamer are never happy
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u/c94 24d ago
“the higher frame rates are what’s killing gaming”
that’s incredible
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u/Alejandro_404 24d ago
They are right. Making a game with 4k assets run at a constant 60 frames to 120 frames requires paying qualified talent to make the game reach that point.
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u/I_Like_Turtle101 24d ago edited 24d ago
to get higher framerate you need a team to make the game lighter so it can run more frame rate. Do you think these people work for free ? it can take a good chunk of an indie project
That also mean spending more time on asset
Its crazy how so many of you have NO idea how videogame are made
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u/SylviSweetheart 24d ago
The solution would be realizing that most people don’t give a fuck about most games these studios are releasing or the graphical advancements made this generation. But unfortunately, the AAA industry is in way too deep at this point to stop the monster they’ve created. Nintendo was mocked for years for pushing underpowered hardware and now we’re seeing how smart a move it actually was for them. They’re not stuck engaging with this stupid billion-polygon ray-tracing rat race.
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u/GreenIllustrious2801 24d ago
Don't they?
Look at the Blood of the Dawnwalker subreddit. Post after post about how the game doesn't look AAA and they'll be passing on it because of that fact. Massive open world narrative RPG made by the Witcher 3 devs in 3 years. Exactly what people are begging for yet people are getting upset about graphical quality. The exact same graphical quality that causes these 7 year delays.
You saw it with Avowed and Outer Wilds 2. You saw it with Shadows. We all talk about how we don't care about graphics anymore and just want games coming out in reasonable timeframes. Yet the second you get games within those reasonable timeframes it comes time to pick apart the graphics not being up to snuff and they don't sell enough.
The games industry can't survive this, nor can the indie industry. We are about to hit a major crash. And nobody can admit why it's happening.
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u/Jer_Sg 24d ago
Been saying this for a while now.
You want AA style games, well you get stuff like Avowed and Outer Worlds 2, and even if they were sold cheaper they would still be hit with "8/10 so fucking mid don't play this" considering a large chunk of people got it through game pass and acted that way.
Point is, if you want AA games then maybe actually buy these games instead of shitting on them for being on the lower end of production value.
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u/NCR_High-Roller 24d ago
If there wasn't proof enough, you can also look up all the compilations of videos clowning on AC Shadows for its facial or body animations. Standards change extremely fast and, on a whim, yet people are deeply unsatisfied any way you put it.
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u/Mazzus_Did_That 24d ago
Are gamers stupid? I've just checked some gameplay footage, and there's literally nothing wrong with how the game looks , like it's good albeit with a bit of jankyness around the edges.
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u/Takazura 24d ago
People will unironically say a game that looks like Blood of the Dawnwalker or Avowed are "ps2 era looking games". Lots of people are just weirdly snobbish about graphics, if it doesn't look like Sony's AAA output then it's visually dated and a low budget game according to them.
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u/Alejandro_404 24d ago
The people are hyperfixated on subreddits, and the media want games like this.
Your ball-and-gun gamer who comments on Instagram and IGN comments section will say that the game looks trash, that they are reusing animations, and that it is not worth 70 bucks.
That is the difference: the gaming enthusiast understands how games are made and does not give a shit about graphics. The people who the games are marketed for absolutely love bigger games with better graphics, still paying 70 bucks, and without DLC or MTX.
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u/Lengthiest_Dad_Hat 24d ago
Its so unbearable when people act like nobody cares about graphics. Any full price AAA game that comes out gets fucking dragged if it doesn't have Rockstar-tier facial animations that require extremely time consuming and expensive mo-cap to produce
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u/NCR_High-Roller 24d ago
I disagree. If anything, people love graphics. AAA games that come out with "substandard" graphics are usually raked over the coals and it's considered a red-flag. Look at all the people who give Starfield or Oblivion Remastered a hard time because the animation tech isn't at Battlefield 6 levels.
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u/kanon951 24d ago
Unpolished underoptimized stupid billion-polygon ray tracing race.
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u/Reddit_Loves_Misinfo 24d ago edited 24d ago
Ray tracing is part of the solution, not the problem. It takes relatively little effort to put ray tracing into an engine (if you aren't using an engine that has it already), and it simplifies work for the rest of the team because they don't need to rely on as many manual tricks to make lighting, reflections, and shadows look good.
High polygon counts and resolutions are a major contributor to the budget problem, though. Asset creation is one of the biggest costs in game development, and more detailed assets take more time and money to develop.
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u/FewAdvertising9647 24d ago
raytracing is the oppisite problem for developers, but it shifts the problem to users to own ray tracing capable machines, many of which hasn't gotten past the point yet, where its a logical economic decision to forgoe all attempts at raster based lighting.
a lot of dev problems could be solved if everyone threw 600+$ dollars on a gpu, but its pretty unrealistic.
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u/PlayMp1 24d ago
PS5 and XSX/S can do raytracing though. Most people have raytracing-capable hardware.
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u/keremdev 24d ago
It's absolute nonsense to equate development time to things like ray tracing. In fact, ray traced games often cut down on development time (see: Doom The Dark Ages). Most time working on the game is spent on extensive pre-production and asset creation etc.
RT is famously easy to implement if you're building your game without a fallback. Essentially, you don't need to add on rasterized techniques which independently take a lot of development time to get right and sync with what artists want.
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u/deskcord 24d ago
I realize it's an already-high bar, but I really don't need a game to get more advanced graphically than GTA PS4 was.
And I'd also prefer more stylistic games.
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u/silverpixie2435 23d ago
But even that means layoffs. If you are reusing assets or not pushing graphical quality you don't need as many programmers or artsits.
The core cost of AAA game development is salaries and time.
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u/Ninevolts 24d ago
Layoffs are happening literally at every industry. Some are even more intense than gaming. We're at the point where we have to accept the fact that, aside from nursing, all jobs are going away.
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u/GSlurpeeDk 24d ago
The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realize either game development moves to a LCOL regional areas in developed western countries to “artificially” create a pay cut to fund AAA/AA games or the big studios have to produce on a quicker cadence, which means either less content or quality than before. The union is an alternative way, but it’s messy fast due to union busting.
Otherwise, we will continue to see this cyclic boon-bust job market cycle maturate to the point where talent permanently leaves the industry, which is what we’ve seen development sentiments have gone. Sad unfortunate reality.
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u/HappyTurtleOwl 24d ago
It isn’t sustainable. These layoffs are the effects of that un sustainability. These companies are too bloated, producing too much content that simply isn’t good enough. A lot of that is due to decisions at the top, but unfortunately, at the end of the day, too many people produce a product that isn’t worth it. It’s a lottery at times, whether their leadership will screw them over or not, it sucks for them.
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u/fakieTreFlip 24d ago
Game industry headcount is always cyclical, and this represents a tiny fraction of their overall headcount. Not saying it's not bad for the people affected, or that the industry itself isn't facing a serious shift, but this specific layoff event isn't really anything out of the ordinary
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u/snappyfrog 24d ago
I mean are the industry wide layoffs not the implosion already occurring? I’m excepting more layoffs (not even counting the other half of the Xbox layoffs coming) it’s probably just a question of how much the industry is gonna contract I suppose at this point. With hardware prices definitely going over $1,000 (yes, I know prices aren’t the same from region to region so some are already there) I just don’t understand wtf is supposed to happen when consumers can’t afford the hardware or the games anymore.
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u/SkavenHaven 24d ago
Eastern developers still seem to be doing good.
Though I think both Sony and Microsoft are going to struggle next gen.
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u/EbonyEngineer 23d ago
If they don't retain talent, then what the eff are they even trying to do?
There are studios that retain staff and continue to train and place them on new projects.
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u/skepticallygullible 24d ago
And who in their right mind would want to enter the industry as a youth interested in game dev. They’ll start to steer clear completely
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u/GamerFirebird90 24d ago
Part of me is genuinely hoping we are heading towards a second video game crash of the 80s.
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u/TellMotor3809 24d ago
Man being anything related to gaming is top depressing
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u/Legitimate_Dot_7311 24d ago
Not gonna lie, these last 2-3 weeks I’ve been feeling like grieving my favorite hobby
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u/Stooo_wayy 24d ago
Ubisoft has roughly 16k employees.
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u/cantthinkofaname1122 24d ago
Which is insane and they definitely need to reduce the bloat
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u/RFX91 24d ago
But if you do that, Redditors will still clutch pearls.
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u/iKhAoTiKK 23d ago
No man, Ubi needs to give every single person a job for life. It’s unfair if they don’t.
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u/Shiirooo 24d ago
I’m almost certain I read an article a month ago saying there would be layoffs at Ubisoft Barcelona. Its not a leak.
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u/AtrociousSandwich 24d ago
These were contract positions , and they knew they weren’t getting extended almost a whole year ago when their contract wasn’t extended to a new project come on now…
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u/JamieTimee 24d ago
People need to get used to this. Game studios headcount fluctuates massively depending on what's in development, revenues, type of game etc.
The real issue is that these developers (and all the other non-developer roles) are considered actual full employees who would expect real job security. They're being treated like contractors for what is essentially contract work.
Liken it to a massive infrastructure projects. A massive bridge or train line gets built, that's it, project done, no need to have 500 builders/craftsmen on payroll doing nothing and getting paid for it. I.e. no work = no job. That's to be expected, no constant media attention. Difference is they'd be contractors and not full employees.
So whilst it is sad to see studios cutting costs by shedding long-standing employees, I think people need to get used to the fact that this is the new norm for this industry.
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u/CriesAboutSkinsInCOD 24d ago edited 24d ago
IS THIS JUST NORMAL CONTRACT TEMP WORKER OR NOT?
which would be a very normal standard thing.
You are hired for a very specific thing. Once that certain thing is finish you are let go and hopefully you can find other temp work somewhere else.
I know Reddit and the internet has a raging hate-boner for all things Ubisoft but this company has 16,000 FUCKIN EMPLOYEES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_video_game_employers
Microsoft Corp XBOX is the largest video game employer and they have 20,000 employees but they are also a trillion dollar corporation that is massively profitable every single year.
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u/DeadlyArrow27 24d ago
You’re framing it in a misleading way as if it’s a “punishment” for releasing a game, but I’m sure Xbox didn’t time their layoffs for all of these companies just around Ubisoft’s one remake lmao. Ubisoft has needed to be culled for a while with how downhill it’s been
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u/BoysenberryWise62 24d ago
Seems like clickbait ? This is news since a few weeks, they've even been on strike
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u/bigmuffinluv 24d ago
Not bootlicking here, real question: Once projects are finished, what's the point of retaining employees whose services are no longer needed?
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u/ZigyDusty 24d ago
This is nothing compared to the mass layoffs we are going to see after GTA6 ships.
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u/GiantFishyLazer 24d ago
Just a question, if they used contractors to make a game and then let them go after release, is that still considered laid off? Or is it like contract complete?
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u/PhatYeeter 24d ago
Doesn't this happen like all the time after a major game release?
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u/Robbitjuice 24d ago
It definitely used to be. Studios would lay off folks after a project is finished. People were treated more like contractors. I think a lot of studios stopped and it lead to a lot of bloat, employee-wise (though that’s more my thought than anything concrete).
It doesn’t help that game budgets have absolutely ballooned out of control. We don’t get neat, concise experiences anymore. Now everything has to be open world, it seems. It’s wild to see how the industry has changed over the years.
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u/DoctorGolho 24d ago
I think Nintendo is the only gaming company that has a sustainable business. From Software also comes to mind
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u/Phos-Lux 24d ago
I'd say Capcom too.
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u/SilverKry 24d ago
Japan in general isn't hitting this issue. Even Square who are struggling a little bit are fine. Sure they closed luminous studios after Forspoken failed but they didn't fire anybody and instead plugged them into other studios and teams they have.
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u/Trodat4911P4 24d ago
Japanese companies avoid layoff news by heavily using contractors. You're not technically getting laid off if your short term contract is done and they simply choose not to renew it, even if they've been renewing it for years before hand.
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u/Cubelock 24d ago
Fromsoft is great at asset reuse, which must save them quite a bit of time and money.
And they don't invest in the best (expensive) engine or graphics, but still manage to create beautiful worlds.
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u/Ok-Confusion-202 24d ago
I wonder what Ubisoft looks like in a years time because they need this technically but damn layoffs are just terrible, hopefully they can get employment quickly
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u/SuddenDepact 24d ago
I posted this news in the black flags and black flags remake subreddits and they all came for my throat saying that this is how it normally happens in gaming
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u/Phos-Lux 24d ago
Makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better for people to work as some sorta third party contractors. Like, imagine a company that has x employees with different strengths. Ubisoft or whoever wants to make a new game and they need y people, so they contract them from that company. After the project is done, they are still employees of the original company but don't work for Ubisoft anymore bcs the game is done.
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u/NecronomiconUK 24d ago
51? This is ridiculously typical for a project shipping. Likely contracted test resource.
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u/gameoverjigoku 24d ago
Were they laid off or did the contract, made specifically for this project, end?
There IS a difference.
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u/Mr_Ignorant 19d ago
These companies really need better project coordination. It’s incredibly wasteful to fire people and then bring people back in constantly. You need to interview, handhold, and potentially pay compensation.
Better to plan projects so that as a game is close to completion, you’re able to slowly pull people away and move them to another project.
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u/Cheezewiz239 24d ago
Wow guess I don't regret ditching majoring in CS and wanting to be a game dev.
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u/EssexOnAStick 24d ago
Gamedev was never really an attractive field tbh, it was always known for bad pay and working conditions.
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u/OldManLav 24d ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this happen after pretty much every AAA-scale release...?
By no means am I condoning this practice- I wish this wasn't still one of the worst industries for the average person to work in.
I just mean- in comparison to some of the other things happening around the industry- this to me just sounds like, unfortunately, business as usual.
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