More Sierra Staffers Laid Off

News of Sierra layoffs continues to reverberate through the Web. This follows Sierra's announcement of a reorganization on Monday and the closing of 20-year-old Yosemite Entertainment in Oakhurst, California.

Another company named in the reorganization was Synergistic Software, otherwise known as Sierra Sports Northwest, which was involved in the development of, among other things, the Front Page Sports: Football Pro 98 and 99 editions. Former employees have acknowledged that the bulk of the staff was laid off on Monday. The status of Football Pro 2000 is now known: The game has been canceled.

A side effect of the layoffs is that Sierra will probably not continue to support Football Pro 99, which was recalled because of excessive problems. While Sierra pledged to continue supporting the game with beta patches for those who refused to return their copies, it appears that Sierra will no longer have the capacity to do so, leaving Football Pro 99 customers feeling betrayed, again.

The reorganization at Sierra appears to be more than what was in the Sierra press release. Sources have told of layoffs in each of Sierra's various divisions, including Dynamix. It was confirmed to us on Friday that 30 Dynamix employees, mostly artists, were laid off at the end of this week, the majority of whom were working on the unannounced NFL Pinball.

Sierra On-Line founder Ken Williams wrote an open letter to Yosemite stating, "Roberta and I wish to express our deepest sympathies for the recent loss of your jobs. Hopefully, it will not be long before you resume work at Sierra in Seattle, or at some other company... in Oakhurst or elsewhere. According to tradition, I'm supposed to say something uplifting and motivational to help everyone feel better. Unfortunately, I have failed at this task. There is really nothing good that can be said. This is a sad ending to Sierra's 20-year operating history in Oakhurst, which at one time represented over 550 Oakhurst-based employees."