More layoffs at SE NA

[Loony BoB]

Including at least one person I'm fairly certain has met a few of our staffers. All the best to those that have lost a job - hopefully they all get snapped up by another company soon. As for Square-Enix, I don't think much will change development side... I imagine marketing for NA might be a little more hard hit.

[Del Murder]

Where did you see the names of the layoffs?

[Loony BoB]

My Twitter feed. :p If you look around on Twitter you'll find the SE employees pushing for those laid off to be picked up by other companies.

[Jinx]

Guess y'all shouldn't have had so many drinks!

[Renmiri]

SE is hurting big time on the stock market. Has been since the FF14 crisis. And gaming companies as a whole are not getting good grades from Wall Street. Heck, Activision, who has the wildly successful WoW with 10 million monthly subs is considered a "limited growth" company and it's owner has been advised to sell it! And no one wants to buy it. :eep:

[Roogle]

My Twitter feed. :p If you look around on Twitter you'll find the SE employees pushing for those laid off to be picked up by other companies.

Can you post a link to the tweet or provide more information?

[Ouch!]

Given that bloated sales expectations compared to actual results, I'm not at all surprised to see marketing getting hit in the fallout.

[XxSephirothxX]

Given that bloated sales expectations compared to actual results, I'm not at all surprised to see marketing getting hit in the fallout.
Yeah, the projections they had for Tomb Raider and Hitman were insane--considerably higher than the franchises traditionally sell, I believe.

Still, this really sucks for Square Enix NA. They have relatively little impact on the quality of games the company as a whole produces, I'm sure, and bad games selling poorly in North America means they lose jobs. Crappy situation.

[Loony BoB]

My Twitter feed. :p If you look around on Twitter you'll find the SE employees pushing for those laid off to be picked up by other companies.

Can you post a link to the tweet or provide more information?
https://twitter.com/eyesonff/news is where I was reading a bunch of them, particularly on the Twitter accounts for Laura https://twitter.com/chibilola and Liz https://twitter.com/LizStewartPR

[Ouch!]

Given that bloated sales expectations compared to actual results, I'm not at all surprised to see marketing getting hit in the fallout.
Yeah, the projections they had for Tomb Raider and Hitman were insane--considerably higher than the franchises traditionally sell, I believe.

Still, this really sucks for Square Enix NA. They have relatively little impact on the quality of games the company as a whole produces, I'm sure, and bad games selling poorly in North America means they lose jobs. Crappy situation.
This isn't an issue of bad games selling poorly in North America, though. Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution, and Tomb Raider all scored 80+ on metacritic and were generally well-received. Tomb Raider sold over three million copies in a month, which is is pretty damned impressive, but Square Enix apparently anticipated shipping 5-6 million copies. It just screams of poor market research. If Tomb Raider had sold six million copies, it would have been one of the best-selling games of this console generation. Factor in that until this game, Tomb Raider has been a disappointing franchise for nearly a decade, Hitman is a second-tier franchise (in market power, at least), and Sleeping Dogs was a new IP, and their sales expectations begin to look like a wishlist that someone made up with ballpark estimates and no consideration for reality.

[XxSephirothxX]

Given that bloated sales expectations compared to actual results, I'm not at all surprised to see marketing getting hit in the fallout.
Yeah, the projections they had for Tomb Raider and Hitman were insane--considerably higher than the franchises traditionally sell, I believe.

Still, this really sucks for Square Enix NA. They have relatively little impact on the quality of games the company as a whole produces, I'm sure, and bad games selling poorly in North America means they lose jobs. Crappy situation.
This isn't an issue of bad games selling poorly in North America, though. Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution, and Tomb Raider all scored 80+ on metacritic and were generally well-received. Tomb Raider sold over three million copies in a month, which is is pretty damned impressive, but Square Enix apparently anticipated shipping 5-6 million copies. It just screams of poor market research. If Tomb Raider had sold six million copies, it would have been one of the best-selling games of this console generation. Factor in that until this game, Tomb Raider has been a disappointing franchise for nearly a decade, Hitman is a second-tier franchise (in market power, at least), and Sleeping Dogs was a new IP, and their sales expectations begin to look like a wishlist that someone made up with ballpark estimates and no consideration for reality.
Oh yeah, I agree with you 100% on those games. Those games have performed really well and their projections were insane. I was more referring to this generation as a whole; Square Japan has put out some real garbage, though even a lot of those have sold okay in the US. This just feels like the accumulation of about six years worth of issues finally reaching a breaking point.

[Del Murder]

Aww, Liz. :(

[Bolivar]

It just screams of poor market research. If Tomb Raider had sold six million copies, it would have been one of the best-selling games of this console generation.

This. Most studios in this day and age would be popping the champagne to sell the numbers Tomb Raider has. I really have no idea what they were thinking.

[Freya]

My twitter feed was blowing up yesterday cause of this. Sorry SE NA people :(

[Roogle]

It just screams of poor market research. If Tomb Raider had sold six million copies, it would have been one of the best-selling games of this console generation.

This. Most studios in this day and age would be popping the champagne to sell the numbers Tomb Raider has. I really have no idea what they were thinking.

Yes, it makes me wonder who is in charge of financial projections and if they are still with the company. It really is ridiculous. I guess it just provides you with an example that all companies consist of ordinary people, no smarter than the rest of us.

[nirojan]

Oh wow this is the new CEO trying to show he has grit. WHEN ARE YOU FIRING THE JAPANESE DEVELOPERS who s**t out crappy games or let them drown in limbo for years and years. Flush out the senior development staff and let the new blood control development on upcoming Final Fantasy games. Give the western dev (Crystal Dynamic, Eidos Montreal, etc.) some breathing room cause they're the only part of the company that anyone is looking forward to seeing games from.

[Rostum]

When there's new senior/executive management coming in to a company, especially a new CEO, it's pretty much guaranteed restructuring no matter what industry you're in. This is not surprising, and most likely the people that were let go were not that important to the company's overall strategy.

[Loony BoB]

Oh wow this is the new CEO trying to show he has grit. WHEN ARE YOU FIRING THE JAPANESE DEVELOPERS who s**t out crappy games or let them drown in limbo for years and years. Flush out the senior development staff and let the new blood control development on upcoming Final Fantasy games. Give the western dev (Crystal Dynamic, Eidos Montreal, etc.) some breathing room cause they're the only part of the company that anyone is looking forward to seeing games from.
Not sure how aware you were of this, but Eidos / Crystal Dynamics answered only to Wada and as far as I know were given all the breathing space they desired. When they bought the developers the management team was, I believe, pretty much untouched. If anything, they were better off - I mean, if you look at the games Eidos/Crystal Dynamics have produced since the takeover, they've been far better than the games they produced shortly before the takeover.

The only problems they have had seem to be...

1) expectations of sales of any products
2) development times, perhaps just in Japan for this but it's hard to say
3) recent FF titles not being rated as highly as previous ones, most notably FFXIV at release

Might be wrong, but I think that covers the main problems that they'll be looking at in the long term. I doubt they will be idiots about such things.

[VeloZer0]

Apparently metacritic is to blame for their over estimation.

http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/explanatory_20130326en.pdf

[Loony BoB]

Yeah, I've read that metacritic thing, but I would say them mentioning metacritic is more just a subtle way of them pointing out that poor sales weren't down to poor quality games (as shareholders might have viewed the situation when you consider recent FF titles).

It's clearly a marketing issue and a development cost issue, though.

The most notable thing I saw in that document, though, is that "I am pleased to report that Social Gaming and Others shows solid performance" bit. Didn't they say they will be focusing on what does best for them at SE? This for me is a concern. :( On the flipside, they also mentioned that the new division to develop casual games for smartphones (in the US) did not go well and that they are shutting it down. Huzzah.

EDIT: Really interesting to read about them not automatically reappointing any of the directors for the first time since Square and Enix merged, and that Phil Rogers (SE Europe, essentially Eidos) is the only person aside from Matsuda specifically named as a potential director.