The huge wave of layoffs and game
cancellations just hit Sony and at least one Marvel project is no longer happening
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Beloved developer Insomniac Games just celebrated its 30 year anniversary, along with 5
0 million
units sold of their Spider-Man series after it was revealed Spider-Man 2 had sold well over 10
million copies in 4 months. And their hard work was rewarded by being forced to fire a bunch
of people. Sony is the latest major company to layoff a large number of employees so they
can adjust to the changing market conditions. As reported by Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier,
Sony will be globally cutting 900 jobs, which is 8% of their employees. These include
forced layoffs at 3 of their big
gest Studios: The Last of Us and Uncharted Creator
Naughty Dog, Horizon’s Guerrilla Games, and of course Insomniac, creators of Ratchet and
Clank and the Marvel’s Spider-Man series. It’s unknown exactly how many employees every studio
was forced to layoff, but according to Bloomberg Guerilla had to layoff 10% of its staff, which
would come to 40 people, and according to leaked documents from last year, Insomniac was likely
forced to let go of even more employees than that. So far we confirm
ed Thomas, one of the community
managers for Insomniac was let go, as well as Emma, who served as game designer on Spider-Man
2 and was also working on Marvel’s Wolverine, whose release window was already unclear after
the massive hack in 2023 that saw the game’s entire story, pre-alpha gameplay, a trailer,
and a playable build leaked online. We’re still waiting for confirmation as to how many
devs working on Wolverine were just laid off. This announcement came not long after
Sony’s stock
took a hit after they had to adjust the projected number of PS5
sales last year from 25 million units sold, to 21 million. Sony also shut down its
London studio and canceled several VR games. Speaking of canceled games, Sony also
revealed cuts would be made at Firesprite, who were working on a Live Service Twisted
Metal Game that Sony wanted out as a way to take advantage of the popularity of
the TV show. That game is canceled too. Sony in general seems to have taken a step back
from its h
uge live service investment initially pushed by Jim Ryan, especially after the less
than enthusiastic reaction to the newest game from Destiny developer Bungie. But they will likely
rethink that to some degree due to the success of Helldivers 2, which so far is the biggest
game of 2024. They also, according to Bloomberg, canceled a planned multiplayer Spider-Man game
that Insomniac was working on. Sony CEO Jim Ryan expressed in an email to employees that the
goal moving forward was long ter
m sustainability, as rising development costs have been a hot topic
among AAA developers, who are trying find a way to produce less expensive games with more financial
upside, like EA who yesterday canceled another upcoming Star Wars Game and said they were
moving away from licensed games in General and will instead be focusing more on their owned
IPs, sports and live service games, which means we’ll be seeing less Marvel Games, and Star wars
Jedi 3 could be their last Star Wars game. It’s
unclear if Sony will be making a similar decision,
as EA mentioned the very high licensing fee from Disney as the main reason they were canceling
Star Wars Battlefront 3 and the Mandalorian game. With Insomniac reportedly planning even
more Marvel Games in the future, it’s fair to wonder if Sony will force them to scale some of
that back after this latest round of layoffs, with guaranteed money makers like Marvel's
Spider-Man 3 probably safe from getting canceled. We also don’t know how thi
s will impact
potential story DLC for Spider-Man 2, however the highly anticipated New Game
Plus update is still releasing soon, so if you want some less depressing news,
we got some cool new details about what to expect when that update arrives next week. I
break that down in the next video on screen.
Comments
What do you think PlayStation should do with their games going forward?
I want these companies to be more transparent, how can you release a successful game, make a butload of money and then lay off 900 ppl, someone cant handle money correctly, and someone is at fault, and we should know who
The sad part is that Insomniacs latest DLC for Spider-man 2 was going to help fund a charity where 100% of the proceeds were going to help support young people trying to get a start in the gaming industry. Nice message Sony are sending out with this news.
I really hope they don't cancel that X-Men game Insomniac had in the pipeline. It's been sooo long since we've seen the mutants and it'll be a major loss to let this slip away.
I pray wolverine isn’t canceled
Wow! Insomniac Games where our employees personal identities are compromised to the dark web, and then two months later we fire all of them after making historic profits!
This was their plan if madam web flopped 😢
If Sony really thinks this was a good idea, maybe some of their higher ups should be replaced
Every time I dare to dream about a new Twisted Metal game, something happens :(
So far wolverine is still happening and hasn't been officially cancelled despite these layoffs, this is still terrible news.
Dang Sony is getting rid of almost 10% of their workers… that is a lot
the reality is that the gaming industry was in a boom and they hired unessential employees. We are now in a recession and they are trimming the fat on their company to save money. This will have no to little effect on the games and when we get them. the tech industry is extremely saturated and now budgets are getting cut.
ofc, instead of having their top guys have a slightly smaller paycheck, they lay off fairly sizeable percentages of employees. corporations am i right?
This is crazy cuz they been cooking lately.
I was scared at first because I thought this meant we won’t get that new Spider-Man 2 update on march 7 until I watched the end of the video of you explaining it’s still happening phew thank goodness for that
I hope wolverine is not cancelled
Love service isn’t the answer to gaming. Sucks that there were layoffs
It was for their live service not the people behind the single player titles.
I feel like Sony is purposely trying to lose money
Every developer is going to lay off tons of people. Unfortunately that’s what happens when your stockholders want bigger profit margins