Baldur's Gate 3 Dev Says Mass Industry Layoffs Are "Sick"
It's been a rough couple of years for the games industry, with record levels of layoffs and more and more people losing their jobs with each passing month. Xbox and PlayStation alone have laid off thousands of people between them, leading to the cancelation of promising projects, and smaller developers like Gearbox are feeling the effects of Embracer's massive spending spree in 2021.
One concurrent theme throughout is companies explaining that they were forced to lay people off and had no choice in the matter, but Baldur's Gate 3 developer and Larian Studios director of publishing Michael Douse doesn't see it that way. Instead, he thinks the recent layoffs are an "avoidable f***-up" and that companies are happy to sack people if it means keeping shareholders happy.
These comments came from a recent interview with Game File reporter Stephen Totilo, in which Douse absolutely lays into the games industry in one of the most critical and passionate displays you'll ever see from someone connected to a blockbuster video game. When asked by Totilo why we're seeing so many layoffs right now, Douse places the blame on sheer greed and poor planning, explaining that the industry is no longer as predictable as it once was.
It's possible to have enough reserves. Maybe don't be so greedy and plan better. It's not about keeping everyone employed, because people get fired. That's normal. But to prevent these giant operational failures that we call layoffs…they are an avoidable f***-up.
Douse goes on to claim that we're seeing so many layoffs back to back because companies have wanted to do it for a while, but they've been given the green light now since everyone else is doing it, describing the process as "really kind of sick." When asked to elaborate on why he thinks companies want to lay people off rather than them being forced to, he says that layoffs being an inevitability is "just not true."
There are cases where that may be true. But, no, they don't have to. None of
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