Ex-Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president Chris Deering does not believe recent layoffs across the games industry have been a result of corporate greed. Instead, workers who have lost their jobs should “drive an Uber” or “go to the beach for a year” until employment settles.

Deering was a guest on games writer Simon Parkin’s podcast My Perfect Console, where the pair discussed games industry layoffs.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say that the resulting layoffs have been greed,” said Deering. “I always tried to minimise the speed with which we added staff because I always knew there would be a cycle and I didn’t want to end up having the same problems that Sony did in Electronics.”

What a prick. Revenue grew 17% last year but need to lay people off lol.

"Sony has released its FY2023 financial results, revealing that its game and network services revenue grew 17% to ¥4.3 trillion ($27.5 billion). Likewise, the company’s FYQ4 (ending March 31, 2024) gaming revenue saw a modest 2% bump to ¥1.1 trillion ($7.0 billion).

According to its earnings presentation, Sony attributes these gains to increased sales of non-first party titles and add-on content. The company sold 286.4 million games — 14% of which were first party titles. While the year’s total game sales grew 8%, first party sales fell 9% compared to FY23."

  • Varyag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    And then when I say allbillionaires should be put into flaming woodchippers feet first I’m the one that’s out of line.

  • Night Monkey
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    3 months ago

    If they keep making games like concord, the layoffs will continue.

    • Katana314@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The biggest tragedy with Concord is that the mistake was in the high-level direction. From what I heard, everything past that about gameplay systems and coding was reasonably serviceable. So people did their jobs right, and were doomed anyway by executives.

        • Katana314@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Character design is basically high-level direction, which is why I said that. The concept artists come up with ideas and the lead designer decides which one they go with.