Normally, the mood around a game development studio about to release a game after years of hard work should be one of great excitement. Unfortunately, that’s not the case at Vancouver-based The Coalition, the team behind next week’s highly anticipated Gears of War: E-Day.
Speaking to Eurogamer, several developers, who were provided anonymity to protect their identity, discussed the fear and uncertainty within the studio amid Xbox’s recent “reset” that’s led to thousands of layoffs. The Canadian developers said they were initially hopeful they’d avoid Xbox’s axe due to working on a big game like Gears of War and being a flagship studio within the larger company, but that sentiment has changed as of late, with many now fearing they’ll soon lose their jobs.
“The mood is certainly ‘let’s not celebrate the game until we’re three months post-launch, just in case’, which is very unusual,” one developer told Eurogamer. That attitude shift comes after Xbox gutted teams like Obsidian (The Outer Worlds), id Software (Doom) and even Halo Studios (Halo: Campaign Evolved), while also divesting from the likes of Montreal’s Compulsion (South of Midnight) and Double Fine (Psychonauts 2).
And most recently, we learned that Gears of War: E-Day story director Juan Vaca was cut in late September, just two weeks before the game’s release. Eurogamer reports that other members of The Coalition were let go around this time as well, although it’s unknown just how many.
Said one developer about Vaca’s departure: “I can only imagine the heartbreak of spending all those years on a game to have the final stretch ripped away, completely out of your control. It’s like you planned for a year on a meal for your family where everyone will be there and the day of, you get locked out of the building or something and can’t join in.”
All the while, one source told Eurogamer, The Coalition has been “crunching hard” — a term for prolonged overtime — to finish Gears of War: E-Day. And to make all of this hurt even more for The Coalition, Eurogamer reports that Xbox has bonuses tied to the game’s Metacritic score, a ridiculous but sadly long-running practice in the industry. However, these bonuses are expected for late October, so there’s a lot of uncertainty regarding whether those who have been laid off and would no longer be full-time employees at the time of payout would even get the money they absolutely earned.
Eurogamer says it understands that those like Vaca who were “recently impacted” would still get bonuses even though they were let go earlier. That said, the publication does acknowledge that it’s unclear whether people who may be laid off after the game’s launch would be included. Either way, developers told the site that they’re skeptical Xbox would honour any of these payouts, and honestly, who can blame them?
At the time of writing, E-Day has an 88 on Metacritic based on 26 reviews, although it’s unclear what score developers would have to hit to qualify for the bonuses. It also should be noted that some sites like IGN won’t have a full scored review for another week or two to factor in multiplayer impressions, given that the review build only included the single-player campaign. Therefore, an updated and more accurate Metacritic score likely won’t come until after launch, and by then, Xbox may very well have laid off even more people at The Coalition.
All in all, Eurogamer‘s report is a sobering look at how so many developers nowadays, especially those under Xbox’s umbrella, have to constantly fear for their jobs regardless of how good or big their game ends up being. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wants to pretend it’s business as usual as it plans to move forward with big games like a new Halo and Fallout, but axing so much talent and then leaving those that remain with ever-dwindling morale is intrinsically counterintuitive to that.
Image credit: Xbox
Source: Eurogamer
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