THQ Lays Off 30 at Homefront and Red Faction Devs

[Greg Tito]

THQ Lays Off 30 at Homefront and Red Faction Devs

THQ confirmed that 30 people from Volition and Kaos Studios no longer have jobs.

Volition, based in Champaign, Ill, is known for the Red Faction and Saints Row series of games. 16 people from Volition - out of the 200 employed in total there - were asked to leave, while 17 staff from Kaos Studies were let go effective March 29th. Homefront released just last month to generally decent sales [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108189-Strong-Homefront-Sales-May-Save-Kaos-Studio], but the numbers apparently weren't enough to keep the company from downsizing. I'm glad that THQ has made it clear that it will try to provide for the departing employees as much as possible.

"Kaos has a dedicated team in place that will continue to support Homefront with an ongoing, robust DLC and content plan, as well as working on pre-production for future games," a statement from THQ read. "We have made changes to ensure that the team size aligns to the current stages of internal product development."

As for Volition, THQ made clear the layoffs would not affect any ongoing game development there, such as Guillermo del Toro's Insane [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106054-Guillermo-del-Toros-Insane-Announced-Insanely-Early]. "Steps are being taken to ensure team members affected by the transition are treated with appropriate concern," stated THQ. "The changes are not expected to affect any current or future titles in development with Volition."

Is there something in the air today? Just today, I've heard that Sony Online laying off 205 people [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108893-Mega-Man-Universe-Cancelled]. Now THQ is also getting rid of people. I know the hiring and firing cycle of game development is the cause, but that doesn't make it suck less for the people who no longer have the dream job of designing videogames.

So much for the videogame industry being recession-proof.

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33856/THQ_Confirms_Volition_Kaos_Layoffs.php?]

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[icyneesan]

Oh god, I hope saints row the 3rd is okay D:

Oh and yeah the people too...

 

[FlashHero]

..So there is enough fired ppl who need jobs who all have industry XP now to open a new studio?..If only i had $4 million .

 

[Trolldor]

Good. Maybe they won't lie through their teeth next time they release a 'terrifyingly plausible' game.

 

[Dango]

Didn't it sell over one million copies? Why would they need to layoff any devs?

 

[El Danny]

It's the end of the financial year, companies are bricking it. If they haven't hit last years targets, this is when they'll suffer their losses.

 

[josemlopes]

Why Volition? I love those guys.

 

[Baresark]

Like no one saw that coming. What the publisher fails to understand is that no matter what, they assigned these projects to the studio, and they had final say in everything. why in the world would they okay the release of Homefront? Also, last I heard, they sold over a million units on that, what is a successful game again? I mean, Demon's Souls sold like 400k units world wide, and it's getting a sequel... oh wait, Demon's Souls was a highly original game that didn't attempt to remake the wheel, but instead gave us a flying car.

 

[Jamieson 90]

Sounds familar to what happened after the new Wolfenstein bombed. They also promised to support the game..

 

[Albino Boo]

Didn't it sell over one million copies? Why would they need to layoff any devs?

1 million isn't enough. If you take the retailers margin out of around 12% the are only getting $48 per copy sold. So thats $48 million, sounds a lot but isn't. The development costs for Homefront are likely to be the region of $25 million, then you have to add the advertising budget, lets be conservative and say thats another 15 million and finally your production and distribution costs of around 1 million. That gives you a total 41 million, so a pre tax profit of 7 million. After taxes you are talking about a profit of $2.5 - $3 million on the up front spending of $41 million, as return on investment not that hot.

 

[Dango]

Didn't it sell over one million copies? Why would they need to layoff any devs?

1 million isn't enough. If you take the retailers margin out of around 12% the are only getting $48 per copy sold. So thats $48 million, sounds a lot but isn't. The development costs for Homefront are likely to be the region of $25 million, then you have to add the advertising budget, lets be conservative and say thats another 15 million and finally your production and distribution costs of around 1 million. That gives you a total 41 million, so a pre tax profit of 7 million. After taxes you are talking about a profit of $2.5 - $3 million on the up front spending of $41 million, as return on investment not that hot.

While googling the sales, I see that it actually needed over 2 million for THQ to break even, so given the costs of everything I can kind of understand.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Didn't it sell over one million copies? Why would they need to layoff any devs?

Devs were the people who actually made the game and though i hate to see the logic they had to go but i think so should the people above the devs since it was also a part in their mistake.

Also the game sucked a lot and put too much or little effort into one aspect of the game itself which still deserves no merit for even trying.

 

[Scabadus]

Gahhh my first instinct is to laugh, but deep down I know the guys loosing their jobs will be the hard working programmers and artists and the executives responsible for writing and creating an average game will be left on their thrones.

Here's a hint for you THQ: next time you try to take a slice of COD's cake, don't do it by creating an exact clone of the game minus the brand recognition.

 

[teebeeohh]

why volition? i do love saints row and their games seem to sell pretty well

if this has delays the release of saints row 3 into 2012 i will chop the head of a thq executive and shit down his neck. Then i will high five the DUKE


(the above post contains irony)

 

[cainx10a]

I hear they did a relatively decent job with the MP, sad to see this happen. Oh well, maybe next time, a 10 hour long campaign please.

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

When I heard the story for Homefront revolved around Korea[footnote]North Korea, South Korea; put 'em together it's still unimpressive.[/footnote] invading the U.S., I felt like firing someone. Hopefully someone at the very least partially implicated in the story was laid off instead of some innocent that was saying the whole time "I gotta bad feeling about this..."