SCE Santa Monica had developed games from franchises such as God of War, and Fat Princess. This makes it obvious that the studio has significance to Sony as they developed some of it’s most successful games. Gaming journalist Colin Moriaty from IGN broke the news that there had been layoffs at Sony’s Santa Monica Studio. Founded in 1999 and a Sony owned, exclusive developer, Santa Monica’s operations were not only similar to it’s owner but run by Sony. Anyone’s initial impressions to layoffs is that they company doing it is going through rough times. I am here to describe what the Sony Layoffs could mean for Sony, and the gaming industry.
I am going to dismiss the possibility that the layoffs were because of financial troubles within the company. With a new console out and an abundance of attention, the last thing that the layoffs could be were for financial troubles. I am going to ease you, the reader, into my theory of what is going in with a real life situation. I am a pretty young person who really does not require a large amount of money to live. On June 11th, 2012 at 564.51 I purchased a few Google stocks using a large amount of my savings. As of 8:25 A.M, February 26, 2014 the stock is valued at 1,220.0 even. A couple months ago I decided that I needed to manage my new found money and success. I sold off a few, not all, of my stocks so that I could expand my growth.
Sony is at a boom right now. And as we Americans have seen, especially in 2008, where this is an economic boom this is usually a bust or decline. What I believe Sony is doing is they are restructuring the company and modifying their cash flow. The layoffs could mean they are bringing in new group of employees of better skills. It could also mean they are scaling down SCE Santa Monica so that they could completely integrate it into another development team. My point is that these layoffs are most likely not from financial troubles, but from financial restructuring. Although I have no evidence to back up my theories on why this is happening and how it affects Sony, there are two very clear things for what it means from the gaming industry.
First situation. Assume my theory about it being financial restructuring and they are bringing in 50 new young, bright, promising developers. The gaming industry will have yet another promising game studio. Now lets assume this was because of financial troubles. The gaming industry has just suffered the loss of a prominent gaming studio.
Overall at this point everything is speculation. In the end this is a move that will affect not only Sony, but the gaming industry.
What do you think is going on with the Sony layoffs? Comment below or tweet me @FuelForNerds and let me know your opinion.
