Big layoffs hit Eidos Montreal / Update: 27 got fired

"Thief developer Eidos Montreal has just laid off a number of employees, according to multiple Kotaku sources.

We've heard differing numbers, but they're big—one source says 30-50; another says 20. Those people requested anonymity while speaking to Kotaku."

Source.

Pretty bad news for those people, if true.

Also, bad news for the future of Deus Ex and Thief.

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Update: Square Enix confirmed, 27 people got the boot:

"Yes it is true we've let 27 people go today, unfortunately it's something that every major studio has to do sometimes in order to ensure you have the right set up for current and future projects. It's never a nice thing to do but we are genuinely trying to offer as much support as much as we can. We're trying to re-locate as many people as possible into other roles here or at our other studios and we've been in touch several studios in Montreal to arrange a career day for those affected by this. We're very thankful for all their hard work and we sincerely wish them well."

Considering the harsh reviews Thief got

Not surprising considering mixed reactions on Thief. However, It's probably not a big loss to the studio. They did get 400 new staff members after Deus Ex's success.

That was quick lol.

Pretty typical after a launch of any major game for them to lay off the bloated staff they get trying to get the game done.

Sad to hear that but thats the harsh reality of working in the video game industry.. Zero job security

Bad news for SE in general they really need a killer title soon

Consoles kill yet another dev

In other news, Square Enix announces another shitty final Fantasy game, gives devs a raise for their underwhelming work.

Ya better run, ya better take cover.

I feel for them, but Thief had a different division than Deus Ex, so the layoffs shouldn't effect that franchise. They probably let them go because their metacritic scores were too low or something. Personally, I didn't care for the new Thief at all, and stealth is my favorite genre.

Is this a surprise really, you can't use the exact same team for every game.

That sucks. It's also depressing Eidos is part of S-E.

I'm not too upset, I thought Deus EX HR was shit, haven't played Thief but from what I'm reading it's pretty mediocre, which is how I felt about Deus Ex HR. Hopefully they're just clearing house to acquire more talented people to replace them. For all we know they're just cleaning house of game testers which they won't need for another year or two.

No, every studio lets people go after a project. They were probably hired on as temps. See wasdie's post. Highly doubtful it was because of a stupid metacritic score.

They took their jobo_O

*South Park Redneck voice*

They took their jobo_O

*South Park Redneck voice*

Its pretty disgusting how much they blame their western devs for all their troubles even though they're the only studios in that company doing anything remotely interesting. I wonder how many from the FF13-2 dev team got laid off.

This, nothing out of the ordinary.

However, still a shame for the people that got fired.

If it weren't for games like Sleeping Dogs, Hitman, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex or Thief, I would have zero interest in Square Enix.

Even if a game is successful, developers tend to lose their jobs after a game is completed. It's simply the way of the industry for developers to hop from game to game.

I think it's pretty safe to assume this is solely down to the failure that was Thief, low metacritic and I'm guessing probably lousy sales.

We can only speculate. It makes sense after a project is completed, people shift.

Yeah, it probably is just standard layoffs associated with finishing up, but I read that people's contracts are often tied up with metacritic scores. They can get bonuses if a game scores above a set point, and the axe if the game does poorly. Like I said, I'm just glad it's not the same team as Deus Ex.