Kotaku is reporting that Rockstar have laid off 40 employees, most of whom had worked on Red Dead Redemption. The game shifted over 1.5 million copies (and received a glowing 10/10 score from us) – but Kotaku claim that a “significant chunk of Rockstar San Diego was let go earlier today,” just two months after the game was released.
A statement from Rockstar San Diego’s Steve Martin this morning backs up the claim. “As is typical with game development,” he says, “our team sizes have always fluctuated over the course of the development cycle. As Rockstar San Diego transitions from the launch of Red Dead Redemption onto future projects, we are realigning our resources in order to continue to develop games as effectively as possible.”
“We are ensuring that all employees who are affected by these changes are being treated with care,” continues Martin. “While we have no announcements to make regarding a sequel to Red Dead Redemption, the team here are hard at work on the development of downloadable content for the game.”
Perhaps the studio hired lots of staff to ensure the game finally got released, and then cut back on numbers to concentrate on the DLC, although comments on the Kotaku piece suggest otherwise. “There a lot of guys that have been working there for over 10 years that got laid off,” says one reader.
G_The_Enemy14
that sucks, especially seeing as though the game did really well.
skibadee
will look good on there CV then.
gazzagb
Im hoping to pick up Red Dead, got to play it yesterday and I love it.
Shame to see some of them go, they made a cracking game that they can be proud of.
MXZ
Steve martin?
…ok then
anyways they seem to be extreme problems with video games today
PSN down
rockstar laying of 40 people
Reday at dawn laying of 13 people
and appearentty theres diffuculty with the PSP2 so yeah havoc
Apnomis
Is this standard in the games industry? You work really hard for years on a game that goes onto become a multi-platinum bestseller raking in millions for your company and are rewarded not with a juicy bonus but with a P45, leaving you to job-hunt a place on another big game development team…
Doesn’t sound like a very secure way to make a living, unless you really make a name for yourself in the industry…
cc_star
If this happens to the team that made the biggest selling game of the year so far and alongside FIFA, CoD & Halo & GT5 will be in the best selling games of the year – the obvious answer is to nationalise the gaming industry and pump tax money into it
/sarcasm
mrfodder
You created us a fantastic game that is racking in the money, here’s your two fingered reward.
Raider197
That’s terrible, especially since some of the people had been working there for ten years.
skibadee
but when you have worked on big games like this they will not be out of work for very long.
OBBICH
That is bad news, do feel sorry for the team, but after making a game like Read Dead Redemption I’m sure they’ll have plenty to offer other companies!
BrendanCalls
Thats terrible terrible news. No matter how well that game had done they were for the axe.
Big Business sucks, hope those people who lost their jobs get a new one sharpish. I suspect they’ll be fine with Red Dead Redemption on their CV
Dexter17
A pity. Hopefully they go on to do good things within the industry.