Papyrus Slashes Art Staff

Sierra Sports' Grand Prix Legends developer, Papyrus, laid off between ten and 15 members of its art team today. Former staffers say 15 artists were given notice and only four remain under the guidance of art production director Vladimir Starzhevsky. Papyrus says ten staffers, or half the art staff, were laid off. Papyrus says all departing staffers were given at least 30 days notice and a severance package.

GameSpot News spoke to Papyrus general manager Igor Razboff Thursday who said that the reasons for the departures was that as recent Papyrus titles completed their development cycles, it was determined that fewer and fewer artists were needed. "Papyrus has been developing racing titles for years, and the tracks never change," says Razboff. Since there was no real need for building tracks that didn't change, the company decided to let the artists go.

Apparently, NASCAR Racing - 1999 Edition was the first title to benefit from a Papyrus-Russia connection that was implemented due to the reduced number of artists on the Papyrus payroll. The title was the first in the series to add truck racing. By adding trucks alongside the Winston Cup autos, more track building was required, so Papyrus outsourced some of the art production to a Cendant Software partner in St. Petersburg, Russia.

What do Russians know about auto racing? "Not very much," says Igor. "But all that the artists need to do is re-create buildings and other structures from pictures." Now that NASCAR Racing - 1999 Edition is moving close to going gold, there just isn't enough work to do. Papyrus says that if it finds the need for more artists, it will hire back the artists.

Will the company's next big title, NASCAR 3, be affected by the departures? Papyrus says that NASCAR 3 is still looking to release during the first half of 1999.

Is this a sign that Papyrus will be letting more workers go? Matt Sentell, Papyrus' creative director, said, "This doesn't signal any massive changes to Papyrus' strategy." While the Watertown, Mass.-based developer is down to a trim 60 employees, it appears that the company continues to steer ahead with its next titles.

Razboff has been with Cendant for about a year and a half and has been working with Papyrus since March of 1998. Interestingly, Razboff came into the Cendant family (which owns Sierra On-Line) after selling his St. Petersburg, Russia, business (Animation Magic) to Cendant about a year and a half ago. This is the same studio that aided in some of the art development of NASCAR Racing - 1999 Edition. Speculation from those close to the deal suggest Razboff could be sending projects back to Russia to support his business - or is this just an efficient use of Cendant's vast holdings?