Former PlayStation EU boss says devs made redundant should ‘get over it’ and ‘go the beach’ for a year
videogameschronicle.comFormer PlayStation Europe and Codemasters boss, Chris Deering has suggested that developers affected by the recent wave of games industry layoffs should “drive an Uber” or “go to the beach” for a year, while waiting for the industry to resolve its widespread issues.
In the latest episode of journalist Simon Parkin’s My Perfect Console podcast, Deering – who was president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe from 1995 to 2005, and president of Codemasters from 2006 to 2010 – was asked about the current trend of layoffs across the industry.
Deering replied that the layoffs were just part of business and that it wasn’t fair to say that they were driven by greed.
“I don’t think it’s fair to say that the resulting layoffs have been greed,” Deering said. “I always tried to minimise the speed with which we added staff because I always knew there would be a cycle, and I didn’t want to end up having the same problems that Sony did in electronics.
“Now, of course, there was just recently a big layoff of Sony studios, and in London, but that whole studio setup has been run out of Amsterdam now for a few years, and I don’t know… if the money isn’t coming in from the consumers on the last game, it’s going to be hard to justify spending the money for the next game.”
The games exec – who is currently an advisor to various company boards – then suggested that developers being made redundant would eventually be able to get back into the business, but that they would have to sit on the sidelines for a while.
“I think it’s probably very painful for the managers, but I don’t think that having skill in this area [game development] is going to be a lifetime of poverty or limitation,” he said.
“It’s still where the action is, and it’s like the pandemic, but now you’re going to have to take a few… figure out how to get through it. Drive an Uber or whatever, go off to find a cheap place to live and go to the beach for a year.
“But keep up with your news and keep up with it, because once you get
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