Studio layoffs should come as no surprise after Activision announced plans to cut production on games (especially Guitar Hero) and focus on a few core franchises. It was surprising to hear that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen developer Luxoflux was totally axed, though.
Even though Luxoflux isn't working on the new Transformers: War for Cybertron game Activision mentioned in its earnings call, it still seemed like the kind of studio Activision would leverage to work on its move tie-in games (e.g. Shrek). However, official Activision blogger Dan Amrich confirmed yesterday that the studio is closed for good and Guitar Hero developer Neversoft suffered staff cuts along with Prototype developer Radical Entertainment.
Here's the official company statement:
"Activision Publishing continually evaluates its resources to ensure that they are properly matched against its product slate and strategic goals. In 2010, the company's SKU count will be smaller than in 2009 driven in part, by a decrease in the number of music-based games we will be releasing. As we discussed on our earnings conference call yesterday, we are directing our resources against the largest and most profitable business segments, and as part of this initiative, we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities. At the same time, we are increasing our digital/online capabilities as we expect that digital/online will continue to become a more meaningful part of our business model in the years ahead."
UPDATE: In another statement issued today, Activision says Underground Studios is also closing up shop. RedOctane, meanwhile, is being relocated to Santa Monica under newly-promoted David Haddad.
Source:
Layoffs [One of Swords]
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