Layoffs at Lionhead

The days of exclusivity are over. You have to be on all platforms. The whole range.

Anybody remember Black&White 1&2??

Those were the days

Speaking of Fable, why isn't the 2nd one on Steam? I had a copy for the Xbox 360 but the POS broke.

I rather had a fable 4 NOW and 5 later.. now i still have to wait for the 4th one to come 

Too bad they didn't just see the outlook for what it was and cut staff BEFORE making another sequel of Fate, they might have still turned out something of value even if by de facto rethinking.

Should have known it was coming the moment Microsoft forced them to make a Kinect game.

That's a shame, but expected. 

this is what happens when you abandon your original audience,  

Poor Lionhead. it wasn't their fault that  Fable: The Journey was so bad. It was a Kinect game, after all.

...it's a tough industry! :S

Ahh Lionhead, selling gamers DLC that causes game breaking bugs.  I still cannot play Fable 3 anymore, because my character is stuck in a room thanks to a bug introduced by one of the DLC I downloaded (and the area I'm stuck in has nothing to do with the DLC!).

Not a surprise. Fable 3 was terrible and Kinect game was entirely not worth making.

Fable is most likely dead now.Tis a shame.

Should have canned the Kinect only idea right when that clueless bubble head(Peter) left guys.

Something tells me we won't be hearing much about Fable anymore

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I see bad things happening now when MS takes control of a studio.They should've just stayed PC only.Fable 1 is still the best Fable game yet,I have it on PC,but as for the rest they were meh.

I hate the fable series (first game was alright). Never cared much for Lionhead either.

Lionhead is dead.

The only single thing that made that company great was Peter, and even then he usually caused more harm than good.

Without his insight ( think what you will of the hype machine that was his mouth, between Black and White, Bullfrog, and Fable he was a genius) this is nothing more than another sequel factory.....if it survives

The hardcore crowd wasn't convinced enough by Tom Mcshea's more positive review on the Kinect only title to bring in a profit for the company. Perhaps they've learned a lesson to stay away from Kinect only titles and will go back to focusing on the Fable games fans enjoy the most? Or maybe it's because no one really cares about the series any more, having migrated to the insanely popular FPS market... 

always sad to see people let go from their jobs. my father was recently unemployed for some time, but things worked themselves out. hopefully microsoft finds these people a position somewhere, and soon. and to everyone who thinks this is as a result of fable the journeys low scores, i really doubt thats the reason. great game.

Let's take a little reality check on a couple of things:

10% for a studio the size of Lionhead amounts to maybe a dozen-ish people so this is hardly a major new story. It's pretty normal for a studio to see 10-25% of their staff leave once a project hits RTM. The other reality is companies are shifting their focus as the industry shifts. Some are starting to work on titles for next gen consoles while others are shifting their focus to the mobile/social space. When this happens they inevitably have staff whose skills will no longer be relevant. The upside is if you're good at what you do, have a good reputation and are willing/able to move there are still LOTS of opportunities in this industry. 

As for Kinect, it's hardly a failure by any objective measure. It's certainly not hurting Microsoft's balance sheet (then again all of Xbox makes up a pretty small slice of Microsoft's overall revenue!) Keep in mind it was never really meant for the core gamer audience (ie: anyone reading this site). Don't forget that the core gamer audience is a REALLY small portion of the overall population and platform companies such as Sony and MS can't rely solely on the core gamer audience to stay afloat. Selling 20 million copies of a game might sound impressive but once you start looking at other forms of entertainment you'll see that it really isn't. For sake of comparison, CoD has 40 million players online each month worldwide while a single episode of American Idol attracts ~25 million viewers just in the USA. It's very debatable if video games have  really crossed over into mainstream entertainment, especially if you're talking about console titles. That's why you're going to see more mobile, social and Kinect/Move titles as well as more non-gaming content being offered up on consoles.

It must be a horrible feeling when you get a message from the higher ups telling you that your job is over. I hope I never go through that.

And what really ticks me is that companies layoff a part of their staff and shortly afterwards start hiring again, somehow it feels like an insult to the older staff.

people use the kinect?

I would never buy Fable: The Journey even if I did have a Kinect.  $50 is very far too high of a price point for this type of game.  Many series are going open world, or least much more open gameplay. 

Well, it was actually expected. These companies routinely patrol metacritic when they release a game, and if the game does great there, people get a bonus. If the game doesn't, we see layoffs almost immediately when it's clear the metascore is low.

Fable Kinect scored a 62/100. Not good for the Fable Brand. http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/fable-the-journey

Peter Molyneux and some staff left Lionhead, so we may be seeing the destruction of Lionhead altogether as M$ isn't shy in closing studios.

I'm guessing if they are lucky, those still remaining at Lionhead will get one more chance with one more product (whether it be a 720 or 360 game is anyone's guess.). RARE was transformed into a Kinect studio, so maybe they could do that to Lionhead. The question of sales has yet to be determined until after the Holidays. Any good members could always be transferred to RARE or whatever.

It's testers being let go.  What do you do with them between the time of a game release and the first pre-alpha prototype of whatever game comes next?  Nothing.

Meh I could care less about another failed Fable, bring out another Black and White!

In honor of Peter Molyneux's tradition, "Well you see Kinect Fable sucked because it was for kinect...blah blah blah." "Now in Fable 4 they will do this...."

Love how he doesn't derail his own games till the new one is out :P

always do this new game comes outfollowed by layoffs. its been a trend

they should have named it Kinect - the journey

please lions head don't ruin fable series.bring us fable 1

Just start Fable 4 already. Seriously, who had the idea to make an on rails carriage sim and call it a Fable game to milk it? That person is mentally retarded and I hope he got laid off right along with the other 10%.