1 yr. ago • 100%

Last Of Us Studio Naughty Dog Is Cutting Developers

kotaku.com Last Of Us Studio Naughty Dog Is Cutting Developers

The PlayStation first-party studio behind Uncharted and The Last of Us Part II is laying off dozens of contractors

Games @sh.itjust.works Last Of Us Studio Naughty Dog Is Cutting Developers

Games @lemmy.world Last Of Us Studio Naughty Dog Is Cutting Developers

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Departments ranging from art to production were impacted, but the majority of those laid off worked in quality assurance testing. The sources said at least 25 developers were part of the downsizing. Full-time staff do not appear to have been part of the cuts.

Sources tell Kotaku that no severance is being offered for those currently laid off, and that impacted developers as well as remaining employees are being pressured to keep the news quiet. Their contracts won’t be officially terminated until the end of October and they’ll be expected to work through the rest of the month.

If I'm understanding right it sounds like only part-time contractors are getting cut. Do part-time employees usually get offered severance packages or is this (kinda ghoulish) business as usual? I wonder how much work those people will get done for the rest of the month

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- Do part-time employees usually get offered severance packages or is this (kinda ghoulish) business as usual?
  
  by design part-time employment usually does not confer the benefits of full employment, no. that's part of why so many unions seek to either upgrade part-time workers to full time workers or limit the number of part-time/subcontracted workers that a company is employing--otherwise you basically have an underclass of people who can get totally fucked at any time.
  
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  That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure if the game industry had different standards to other fields for that kinda stuff. Sacking a bunch of QA agents does not sound promising for the games they're working on....
  
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- Part time usually doesn’t receive any benefits. Contractors never receive benefits unless stated in the contract, severance is usually not included in said package but an early buyout might be.
  
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one curious sidenote to these cuts is the TLOU multiplayer game, which seems pretty much dead at this point:

Despite hit ratings for the recent HBO adaptation of The Last Of Us, a multiplayer spin-off for the zombie shooter based on the first game’s Factions mode has struggled in development. Bloomberg reported in June that Sony had diverted resources away from the project following a negative internal review by Bungie, the recently acquired live-service powerhouse behind Destiny 2. One source now tells Kotaku that the multiplayer game, while not completely canceled, is basically on ice at this point.

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