What you need to know
- Sony is laying off around 900 employees across PlayStation Studios, with multiple projects being canceled.
- This round of layoffs will see PlayStation's London Studio shut down.
- There are also significant cuts at Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, and Firesprite.
- Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan is leaving the company in March 2024.
Sony is the latest company to be laying off hundreds of employees from its gaming business.
The news broke on Tuesday, with the company confirming that Sony Interactive Entertainment is laying off 900 people, or around 8% of the PlayStation workforce. As part of these cuts, PlayStation Studios is seeing a significant reduction, with London Studio being shut down. Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, Guerrilla Games and Firesprite will also see cuts.
Of the teams seeing layoffs, Naughty Dog is best known as the developer of the Uncharted and The Last of Us franchises. Insomniac Games has worked on franchises like Marvel's Spider-Man and Ratchet and Clank. Guerrilla Games is the developer of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West. Firesprite, brought into PlayStation Studios in 2021, has not yet released many games, but was responsible for co-developing Horizon Call of the Mountain with Guerrilla Games.
While PlayStation Studios is primarily known for developing console exclusive games for PlayStation hardware, the publisher has been expanding in recent years, bringing a number of PlayStation Studios games to Windows PC. Some of the best PC games available now include former PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 exclusives, with more games coming later this year like Horizon Forbidden West.
Jim Ryan's message to PlayStation workers
You can read Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan's message to PlayStation employees below:
Team,
It is important to provide you with updates about the business as often as possible. Today, I am writing with sad news. Through discussions over the past few months about the evolving economic landscape, changes in the way we develop, distribute, and launch products, and ensuring our organization is future ready in this rapidly changing industry, we have concluded that tough decisions have become inevitable. The leadership team and I made the incredibly difficult decision to restructure operations, which regrettably includes a reduction in our workforce impacting very talented individuals who have contributed to our success.
After careful consideration and many leadership discussions over several months, it has become clear changes need to be made to continue to grow the business and develop the company. We had to step back, look at our business holistically, and move forward focusing on the long-term sustainability of the company and delivering the best experiences possible for our community. The goal is to streamline our resources to ensure our continued success and ability to deliver experiences gamers and creators have come to expect from us.
I want to be as transparent as possible with you, our partners, and our community about what this means:
I know that receiving this news will be hard and unsettling and you are wondering what this means for you. Timelines and procedures for how we approach this will vary based on your location due to local laws and regulations.
The proposed changes mean that we will enter a period of collective consultation before any final decisions are taken. All employees who are part of the collective consultation will be made aware of the next steps today.
For those who will be leaving SIE: You are leaving this company with our deepest respect and appreciation for all your efforts during your tenure.
For those who will be staying at SIE: We will be saying goodbye to friends and colleagues that we cherish during this process, and this will be painful. Your resilience, sensitivity, and adaptiveness will be critical in the weeks and months to come.
This will not be easy, and I am aware of the impact it will have on wellbeing. Affected employees will receive support, including severance benefits. While these are challenging times, it is not indicative of a lack of strength of our company, our brand, or our industry. Our goal is to remain agile and adaptable and to continue to focus on delivering the best gaming experiences possible now and in the future.
Thank you for your understanding during this difficult period. Please be kind to yourselves and to each other.
Jim
Ryan is slated to depart PlayStation in March 2024, having served as CEO at Sony Interactive Entertainment for the last few years.
What does this mean for PlayStation Studios?
With this kind of reduction, some games are being cancelled. London Studio was working on a fantasy-themed live service title that had not yet been formally announced, and this game will now never see the light of day. Per a report from Bloomberg, Firesprite's rumored Twisted Metal live-service game has also been canceled, and the game was still fairly early in development.
Even outside of those two titles, I'd expect a reduction in the number of games that are launching, as this many teams having cuts will result in a knock-on effect.
Part of the materials that were included in the Insomniac Games hack of December 2023 included comments from Insomniac lead Ted Price, who warned that if the studio suffered layoffs, the teams would be forced to cancel plans for a new Ratchet and Clank, as well as abandoning work on a new IP, in order to better support development for Marvel's Wolverine and other upcoming games.
Analysis: What can I even say?
2023 wasn't great for layoffs, but 2024 has been utterly brutal. Hundreds at Riot Games. 1,900 at Microsoft Gaming. Thousands at Embracer Group across dozens of studios. Now almost a thousand at PlayStation.
I wish this world valued the people who make games. I wish there were more repercussions for a successful business that decided to remove employees.
If anyone at PlayStation would like to talk about how they're feeling in regard to these layoffs, I'm all ears.
