Today's Developer Cutbacks Brought to You By THQ

[famousringo]

NJ5 said:

That's almost 15% of their employees. Geez...

I didn't expect this so early in the recession. Perhaps it's little to do with the recession anyway, more with the overdue consequences of publishers' bad choices. I'm glad I didn't get a job in the games industry (which I was looking for for some time).

 

I don't think the recession is directly to blame for this. We've all seen the great revenue numbers the industry has been pulling in. The problem is that only a few mega-publishers like Actiblizzard and Nintendo are running away with most of the cash, with everyone else having little to show for huge investments.

Where the economic conditions come in is cutting any lifeline these publishers might find to finance restructuring through market capitalization or borrowing. The markets are tanked and the banks aren't lending, so they have to slash jobs in a desperate attempt to stay viable. But if these guys didn't have a flawed business plan of competing too hard for a market which can't support them all, they wouldn't be in this precarious position.