Id Games to Layoff

When you think about the entertainment products you use on a day-to-day basis, whether it is a movie or a video game you probably do not give much thought to the fact that this work is basically project work. When the movie is made, or the games are on the shelf there is little need to keep on the massive amount of staff on the payroll that were used to make the game. Sure, some companies are always in production, but for the majority of game companies hiring, and laying off of those same staff members, is part of the normal cycle of a project.

That is not to say that when you are the person to get the ax it is any easier than losing a full time job. As a matter of fact, it may actually be a little bit harder since in the current market more companies are doing with less staff, making fewer games and there are less opportunities in the job market. So, even if the job cuts are expected, that does not reduce the amount of anxiety that those people now out of a job feel when they get the pink slip.

Earlier in this week members of the staff at the game maker Ubisoft was able to confirm that some of its staff was being let go. The cuts came from a company that is owned by Bethesda Softworks, known as id Software. The id Software staff is being let go in multiple waves. While some of the staff was let go on Tuesday, other staffing cuts are going to be made in the near future. This means that at the current moment we do not have specific numbers on how many staff members are to be cut in total, for the current moment we do not even have an estimate.

Bethesda Softworks released an official statement about the layoffs in order to quell rumors of a shutdown of id Software. As part of its standard business practice, id regularly evaluates staffing to ensure it has a workforce that meets the needs of the studio. As part of that process, some id employees were recently let go.”

These cuts come after the studio’s first new IP in more than 10 years. The game in question is called Rage. Rage was released for a variety of platforms, but suffered some technical issues on both the PC and more traditional gaming consoles such as the PS3 and the Xbox 360. This did not however prevent the game from getting some measure of commercial success. The game was given decent scores by gamers. Xbox 360 players gave the game an average rating of 82 percent, games on the Playstation 3 gave it an 81 percent and PC gamers gave it a 78 percent.

Interestingly enough the company is current hiring and recruiting new developers for future expansions to Rage, as well as the creation of Doom 4. Doom 4 has been in development for about four years.