Callisto Protocol Publisher Confirms 32 Striking Distance Studios Layoffs to 'Realign Priorities' - eviltoast

This seems to be ~20% of their total workforce.

  • eyes@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That’s not unusual for games studios after shipping a game unfortunately. It likely means that they don’t have another project ramping up after finishing the Callisto Protocol DLC.

    • echo64@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is a studio wholey owned by a big company (pubg people), so the normal end of contracts after a game releases isn’t expected or normal at all. That’s because companies have to sell another publisher on a game to have a full workforce. That’s why those companies contract developers rather than employ.

      This is employed people being laid off, it’s not normal, it is unusual.

      • Defaced@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s pretty known that this game didn’t sell as well as they had hoped. Or at least that’s what I thought was the scenario.

      • eyes@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        End of contract stuff is an issue in the industry, with 15-18% being contractors, but that’s it’s a separate one - if you’re a contractor you’re going to need to find a new job no matter what at the end of the project unless you get lucky enough to snag a permanent role.

        Layoffs for salaried employees at the end of a project is a systematic problem in the industry - This is a really good article from 2014 that’s covers a lot of the issues.

        • echo64@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah we’re talking about the same thing, and also about how it affects companies that have to pitch to publishers. This is not that company. It’s a company wholey owned by its publisher.

  • HBK@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I REALLY REALLY wanted this game to pan out because I love the genre. Too bad it flopped hard :(.

    I bought it day 1 with the intent of (at a minimum) giving it a try until my refund period ran out and it ran like ass. The opening cutscene was a slideshow and that’s with me running a Ryzen 7 5800x, GTX 3070, and 32gb of ram. I started googling to see if it was an issue with drivers or my system and that was when I started seeing reviews for it that weren’t too great. I went ahead and refunded it at that point.

    • Weylandyuta@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I ran it a couple months ago on a Ryzen 5600x paired with ab6800xt. Game ran brilliantly. I also really enjoyed it. I just didn’t go in expecting it to be dead space. I wanted something new and a little different and that’s exactly what I got. I was surprised I could even play it on steam deck.

      • HBK@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        TBH, it was literally Day 1 hours after they released it. I think they patched the issue within a couple days, but by then I had already refunded. I’m impressed that it runs on Steam Deck. That’s some good optimization especially for a triple A game that just came out.

        • Weylandyuta@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, I ran it mostly low settings, fsr and probably between 30-40 fps. So for tons of people that’d be a no go, but I was just excited to play it before I could get back to my rig.

          Yeah two months ago, they basically had patched a majority of the week 1 disappointment. So for me, I had a fresh and reasonable experience. So many studios are releasing under optimized games and patching after sales start.

  • Clown_Tempura@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I absolutely adore the first two Dead Space games and I could not believe my eyes when this turned out to be a shitty corridor shooter/button masher with like four enemy types.

  • S13Ni@lemmy.studio
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    1 year ago

    I am sad this game didn’t work out. I mostly enjoyed it, they did pretty good job fixing it after the launch despite the problems and I just like the genre enough so I would have definitely played another game of this.

    Oh well, I hope at some point Glenn makes another horror game.

  • Defaced@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This game was the definition of video game movie. I seriously think it’s probably just as good of an experience to watch it on YouTube as it is to play and that’s probably not a good trait.

  • chase_what_matters@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m always bummed when a super-hyped game doesn’t perform well. I’m not into this genre so I don’t really know if I’ll ever play it to find out for myself why.