If you guys recall, SEGA was hiring and opening studios in SEGA Australia like they were giving them away. Their SEGA Australia team sadly didn’t deliver hits, releasing the low selling Stormrise. SEGA is restructuring SEGA Australia to focus on digital releases.
“The rise of digital gaming provides an opportunity to align the studio with a rapidly growing market at a time when the games industry is undergoing a significant transition. To this end, we can confirm that SSA has signed a multi-product deal focussing across the digital marketplace. We have commenced development on these titles and will announce more details in the near future. As part of this focus on digital avenues, there is a requirement to re-structure the studio resources accordingly and regrettably, we are announcing the loss of 37 staff. The decision to downsize was not taken lightly but this strategic re-structure will ensure we have a more effective and agile team that will enable us to quickly adapt to consumer needs and deliver strong content across multiple digital platforms. We thank those team members affected for their contributions and wish them well in their future endeavours.” – SEGA to Kotaku
SEGA Studios Australia is the developer doing the upcoming London 2012 Olympic Games. They stated that the development on that title is nearing completion. The studio has signed a mutli-product deal that will mean releasing games for a digital marketplace. The details and titles are yet to be revealed.
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Keep in mind that this practice, for better or worse, is quite common in small developing companies. They lay off the people who have completed their tasks to cut costs. This usually happens when the gap in projects in too wide to keep a consistent flow of work happening. It’s a risky practice, but the company is able to come out on top in the end, usually.
Hopefully, these folks will be hired for the studio’s future projects, or at least have a boost in their resume :/
Wait, so does this mean no more olympic games?
They might just outsource it.
Nah, just means it’s completed. No point keeping a big team together if their next project is not lined up.
I am pretty sure SEGA will keep the olympic license going as long as they can, they get double the money, one from Mario & Sonic and one from the realistic olympic games.
Fair enough. It is good to see SEGA managing itself so well lately. Now this may sound contreversial, but I think sonicteam needs some of it as well. Sonicteam needs more people with the right ideas and good visions.
I guess one could say is that they are improving and that you gotta let generations slide since it was simply a celebration game. I will let it slide and hope to be proved wrong with their next projects.
“releasing low selling Stormrise”
What game?
Screw digital gaming!
Strange because Sega australia recently hired a lot of THQ staff,i wonder if they’re part of the people let go.
Half the staff sacked, Yet administrators, producers, directors etc.. all get to keep thier jobs. You know, the ones with rediculous salaries leeching on the budget, while making expensive mistakes and then patting themselves on the back for it.
And most of them only came on board in the final year of the project.
What’s left is a team half of which are middle management and above with very few actual artist.
The restructuring is just an attempt for the leeches to hang on to thier jobs for just a little longer. How they can keep going in the face of such a soon to be released disaster of a game would be nothing short of a miracle.
Yes I worked there.
RIP Australian games industry.