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. 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.

[Roogle]

My Twitter feed. 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. 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.