Naughty Canine is reportedly slicing a few of its contracted workers. In response to a Kotaku report, the Sony-owned studio shouldn’t be renewing the contracts of round 25 short-term staff throughout quite a few departments, with high quality assurance workers primarily affected. Full-time workers had been apparently not impacted.
Naughty Canine is without doubt one of the jewels in Sony’s first-party crown, creating platform-exclusive hits like The Final of Us and the Uncharted sequence. Again in January, a live-action interpretation of The Final of Us debuted on HBO to crucial and social acclaim, however apparently, that reputation has not been sufficient to help continued improvement on its Final of Us multiplayer challenge.
Earlier this 12 months, Bloomberg reported that improvement on the multiplayer recreation had “slowed down” on account of a poor inside assessment from Bungie — a studio Sony just lately acquired that’s identified for making profitable, live-service multiplayer video games, together with Future 2. In response to sources within the Kotaku report, whereas the spinoff hasn’t been canceled, it’s at the moment “on ice.”
This 12 months has been nice for video games however abysmal for the individuals who make them. A number of studios throughout indie and AAA improvement have been hit with massive, greater, and egregiously massive layoffs regardless of the trade’s file income and 2023’s wealthy slate of blockbuster video games. Sentiment on social media has more and more favored unionization as a solution to defend staff from company abuses and help them when layoffs inevitably occur. Naughty Canine, in response to sources, shouldn’t be providing severance pay to the impacted contract staff — a protection unionization can provide.
