Gazillion sheds staff at NetDevil
UPDATE: LEGO Group buys game and staff, before making lay-offs
UPDATE: Gazillion has clarified to GamesIndustry.biz that the LEGO Group has bought the rights to LEGO Universe as well as the "majority of staff" working on the project and the current offices from NetDevil, and has begun laying off a significant number of staff.
"The transition of members of our team to the LEGO Group allows us to conclude the work-for-hire segment of NetDevil's business and lets us expand our internally-published, free-to-play game businesses based on our own properties and licensed properties," commented David Brevik, president and COO.
"Gazillion is wholly focused on developing, operating, and publishing the next generation of browser-delivered games. We're proud of the LEGO Universe game that our team built, and we are certain that it has a bright future."
Those members of staff remaining with NetDevil will continue to work on Fortune Online. The fate of another NetDevil project, Jumpgate: Evolution has not been discussed.
Original story:
Gazillion studio NetDevil is shedding a significant number of staff according to ex-team members.
Animator Toby Cochran detailed the moves on his blog, noting that members of the team were first alerted by posts on Facebook, and their positions officially axed by phone call later the same day.
"I personally think it's pretty terrible to find news out that way and not to be correctly notified. We all were receiving phone calls tonight and I just got mine about 2 hrs ago," he wrote.
"From what we've been told a handful of artists will be kept on board and continue working on Lego Universe. But at the moment that will be a very, VERY small team. As the count continues to rise on Facebook, they've cut over 20 people."
Gazillion Entertainment acquired NetDevil in 2008, and raised over $60 million last year, focused on building massively multiplayer games.
NetDevil recently released LEGO Universe and was working on the delayed Jumpgate: Evolution.
GamesIndustry.biz has contacted Gazillion for clarification.
I was under the impression Lego Universe was doing ok, I assume that's not the case?
Seeing as its been delayed for so long I think a release is highly unlikely anytime soon.
If that's the case then it's no different from your friends calling you and asking if you're fired because they just received a call saying they were. I'm not sure i see the problem here.... unless you're of the opinion that it really makes a difference that you're told during work hours and all together in one place.
"I'm guessing around 30-40 as of right now. But you'd have to be really naive to not have seen this coming. People (including myself) were clearing their desks and shaking hands...And yeah, "electrical work".."
the reference to "electrical work" is that the company told all the employees to go home as there was "electrical work" being done in the building...then the company began phoning those let go after 1800 and those being kept that they had an off-site meeting today. Not a professional way to do it.
/sarcasm
Gazillion recently launched an open beta, so obviously not everything (and everyone) is going down the drain there.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Krasimir Koichev on 24th February 2011 7:02pm
His blog specifically says: "Unfortunately a lot of talented folks lost their jobs as I've been finding out on Facebook!"
That does *not* equal that they were informed they had lost their jobs over facebook.
The article above says: "noting that members of the team were first alerted by posts on Facebook,"
Again this does *not* equal they were told they had lost their jobs on facebook. Just that they saw people were losing their jobs and were "alerted" to the situation over Facebook.
And Andrew, Gazillion let us go, LEGO had the hard choice of picking who to keep, so they brought back certain people. Like I said on my blog, it's really hard to see people with many years of experience that grew with Netdevil for so long.
As of yesterday my count on people let go was at 32.
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Toby Cochran on 25th February 2011 6:06pm