[1]Hyderabad: All is not well with the gaming industry and that is clearly reflected in the series of lay-offs happening ever since January this year. With Gameloft, Electonics Arts and Zynga sacking employees and shutting down their offices, the trouble for the industry is brewing. However, reasons for this still seem to be elusive.
According to a former employee of Gameloft, they were told by their headquarters in Paris that the Hyderabad studio wasn’t bringing them profits. “The studio has been responsible for implementation for IAPs, IGPs, Blackberry Porting, Nok-ia/Samsung DEMOS, Android 2D/3D, etc, for 3-5 years. Where were they then?,” he said on a portal.
Surprisingly, the news came to the staff on the same day that Gameloft announced its Q4 FY2012 earnings, showing a 27 per cent spike in revenues over Q4 2011 profits.
Another was that of Electronic Arts’ (EA) shutting down Playfish in April along with games including The Sims Social, SimCity Social, and Pet Society. The other shoe dropped when 50 employees at EA Hyderabad studio were laid off, said one of the studio’s employees on the NASSCOM Gaming Forum’s Facebook page.
In a response to MCV India’s report, EA’s corporate communication team said: “EA is sharpening its focus to provide games for new platforms and mobile. In some cases, this involves reducing team sizes as we evolve into a more efficient organisation.” This is part of a larger cost cutting exercise, say industry sources.
Recently, even Zynga, which made waves with Farmville, laid off 520 staff from New York, Dallas and LA offices, in a bid to save $80 million of costs. Given that big gaming firm spend heavily to sustain their user bases, it is difficult for them to survive and stay on top in an industry that is bombarded with many players.
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[1] http://archive.asianage.com/157193-japan-sony-playstation0jpg-193