Tom Clancy studio Red Storm lays off 38

August 27, 2010 | Nicholas Lovell

Ubisoft has confirmed that Red Storm Entertainment has laid off 38 employees in its North Carolina studio.

More details at GamaSutra.

Categorised in: Game Over Zone

Keith

I don’t quite get all thsi lay-off news. I see the games business as being robust, especially with the rise of the indies, and the industry is way more successful than the poor old film biz – so why the lay-offs? Is this the best time ever to start your own thing?

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http://www.gamesbrief.com Nicholas Lovell

It’s a good questin, Keith. I think there are two reasons:
- projects are very lumpy, yet the game industry persists in hiring people full time, rather than using contractors. If the film business had to have everybody who works on a film on the payroll, there would be a bloodbath of redundancies every time a film wrapped.
- the industry is going through a transition from lots of boxed product games to fewer tentpole games and other service-based games (like Farmville). There is a fallout as companies change their business models – and different staff to do it.

I do think that there has never been a better time to launch your own games business though.

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