Daybreak Game Company Lays Off 70 Employees - MMORPG.com News

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Daybreak Game Company Lays Off 70 Employees - MMORPG.com News

MMOBomb is reporting that 70 employees at Daybreak Game Company have been laid off. The news came via former president John Smedley who tweeted his disgust at the layoffs in December and who noted the number of affected employees. Daybreak released a statement to say that it is "optimizing our structure to ensure we best position ourselves for continued success in the years to come".

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Octagon7711

Merry New Year. :-( Hopefully like cats, everyone will land on their feet.

GeezerGamer

"We are optimizing our structure to ensure we best position ourselves for continued success in the years to come."


"Continued success" he says..... HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! P.S. I am still laughing.

Xingbairong

Yeah Daybreak might be the worst gaming company, but at least they can do stand up once they go down eventually, which should happen seeing how the company operates in the last couple of years.

Sovrath

Merry Christmas!

Oh well, companies being companies I suppose.

Amathe

Were these employees the ones that whiffed on Everquest Next? If no, then I feel terrible for them.

Lokero

Show of hands... anyone surprised by this?

Didn't they just go on a big recruitment drive, recently, to boot?

TEKK3N

When Daybreak do something, they do it in style.
Right before Xmas....classy.

Albatroes

So, how many months is everyone guessing until we hear the news that Gamigo buys out Daybreak? In before the typical PR drivel to keep the remaining whales calm:

Rommie10-284

If that guy is disgusted, you done something wrong!

Mackaveli44

Daybreak - Where games that are dead dig 10 feet deeper.... why anyone would want to work for them I do not know. They are the worst gaming company in the industry and from the sounds of it, continue to get worse.

Hariken

So what they are really saying is their 1% shareholders want more money.

Mendel

I'm guessing that Daybreak is trying everything possible to stay afloat until they hit the 20th anniversary of EQ.

It must be a cold and dark place over there, to have such a downsizing at this time of the year. Even their logo looks evil.

I hope those affected by this move find another position soon.

Theocritus

You know when you work for a company like this that its just a matter of time before it goes under....Its a depressing thought but really no surprise.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

craftseeker

My take on this, and I will state straight out that this is pure speculation, is that the unannounced, occasionally rumored, big new game project just got cancelled, and all the people working on it just lost their jobs.

Zebbakei

My only experience with Daybreak has been with EQ1 and 2 and from what I've seen, the content released under their ownership was good at first, and then it plummeted and has been copy/paste, slightly modified old content.

goozmania

I didn't know they even had 70 employees.

TheScavenger

goozmania said:

I didn't know they even had 70 employees.

Asm0deus

TEKK3N said:

When Daybreak do something, they do it in style.

Right before Xmas....classy.

It's a pretty common practice in NA from companies big and small. The right before Xmas part that is as they save money that way.

Asm0deus

gervaise1

Mackaveli44 said:

They are the worst gaming company in the industry and from the sounds of it, continue to get worse.

Why worst?

Under SoE "structural optimisation" happened 6 times in the 7 years before DBG took over - not counting the staff who were laid off right after - which was obviously going to happen anyway.

Lokero

craftseeker said:

My take on this, and I will state straight out that this is pure speculation, is that the unannounced, occasionally rumored, big new game project just got cancelled, and all the people working on it just lost their jobs.

Either that, or perhaps they just were no longer useful to the project and DBG couldn't afford to keep unneeded employees.

Though, that seems a bit unlikely, given how many went at once... unless that new project was near completion.

Then, there's always the possibility that the people they fired were the ones who weren't working on the new project at all.  It's always possible that they just went all in on the new project and tossed everything else to the curb.

But, I have a hard time believing that they even had 70 employees outside of that new project they were hiring for.  At best, they probably have less than that across all their lineup combined.

gervaise1

goozmania said:

I didn't know they even had 70 employees.

The suggestion was that after the lay-offs at the time DBG took over they had about 225 staff. This was just from tweets etc. at the time - nothing official.

Now the report says 70 employees estimated to be about 30% of the workforce - which if true would put them now at c. 163. I think it will be less and that 70 represents a bigger chunk. Why?

When DBG took over they will have set staff levels to revenue coming in + allocated a development budget from overheads for EQN. And Brad said that the EQN team was the biggest team. I would be very surprised if staff levels had not been reduced / allowed to fall further. Closer to 100 than 150 would be my guess. Either way it probably matters little.

gervaise1

Gorwe said:

Well...look at the bright side: Now their profit margin will be better(more revenue, less expenses). At least something.



(these could definitely be pre-sale steps)

Yeah - but the problem is that they will have set their staffing level to their revenue / expected profit margin when they took over. And in the 2 years and more since.

So - yeah but this just means that things have got worse. No surprise though. At the time I said that people whould simply expect DBG to run the games until such time as they stop making money. At which point they will be closed.

Bakgrind

GeezerGamer said:

"We are optimizing our structure to ensure we best position ourselves for continued success in the years to come."


"Continued success" he says..... HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! P.S. I am still laughing.

At least they didn't use the word "Opportunity"  in there. That is my  least favorite corporate jargon wording because it gets used in the wrong context.  As an example I am surprised that they didn't say "We now have a great opportunity to optimize  our business model during this time of restructure. Which will ensure that going forward that we are in the  best position for ourselves and for continued success of the company in the years to come."  Gawd, I hate corporate mumbo jumbo and I am so glad that I am no longer apart of that world.