Report: FEAR 3 dev lays off 95 percent of unannounced Silent Scope revival team
F.E.A.R. 3 developer Day 1 Studios has been reportedly forced to lay off 95 percent of one of its development teams due to a publishing agreement with Konami that went south.
F.E.A.R. 3 developer Day 1 Studios has been reportedly forced to lay off 95 percent of one of its development teams due to a publishing agreement with Konami that went south.
According to a report, the Day 1 team in question was working on a revival of the Silent Scope franchise before the publishing deal with Konami was lost. The last entry in the series was 2002's Silent Scope 3 for the PlayStation 2 from an internal Konami team.
GameSpot reports that Day 1 is now working on a second project, with a now "significantly smaller" team. According to Day 1's official site, the studio employs more than 140--as of the company profile's writing--in both its Illinois and Maryland offices. It's unclear how many people were assigned to the Silent Scope team and how many jobs have been lost.
GameSpot's report specifies the losses came from the Chicago office.
Studio representatives did not respond to Shacknews for clarification on the report, which is not unreasonable considering the timing of the day.
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replyXav de Matos posted a new article, Report: FEAR 3 dev lays off 95 percent of unannounced Silent Scope revival team.
F.E.A.R. 3 developer Day 1 Studios has been reportedly forced to lay off 95 percent of one of its development teams due to a publishing agreement with Konami that went south.-
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The movie? Do you mean Tron Evolution the video game? Disney laid off Propaganda after that released. http://www.shacknews.com/article/67194/disney-closes-canadian-dev-propaganda
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That's not really true or fair - in the movie effects industry it's a known quantity that the jobs are short term. You set up for a film, you get the job finished, you're done. It's more like living from contract to contract - you plan for it, you're not surprised when it ends, and you charge more to cover the unemployed periods.
In addition there's these things called "holding companies". I don't completely understand it but basically they ensure a movie gets completed once production work begins on it. If a movie starts shooting then there's like a 90% chance or better that it will be finished (consequently if a project dies it's almost always before filming starts - aka "development hell")
On top of all of that the movie industry has the concept of a "pay or play" contract. Effects companies probably don't get them but really key personnel - like directors or actors - can. Basically it means you get paid whether or not they use you. As an example, Kevin Smith relayed an anecdote on how Tim Burton was once attached to the Superman Lives project (which eventually became the Superman Returns project) on a Pay or Play contract. Obviously he didn't wind up making the movie but he got paid for it anyway. As a result though, movies that get started in production are likely to be finished because the studio is going to have to lay out a ton of money either way.
The game industry is different. These people were full time employees with an expectation of keeping their jobs indefinitely (i.e., they didn't expect to not be working or employed once F.E.A.R. 3 shipped) and their project was cancelled while they were working on it, which isn't uncommon.
Se people say that the game industry needs a union but I disagree. As much as the Fred Garvins of the world hate it, I think the game industry needs to be more like the movie industry. Plan on projects being short term. Get etched in stone publisher signoff before working on a project, backed by something like a holding company. The model we have now allows for things like DNF taking fifteen years and people working their assess off only to be laid off without warning. -
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Gezzz that's a lot of people 150 take of 95% that's like 145.5 or something gone. So next news article is the studio closing?
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No, it's 95% of the Silent Scope project team, not 95% of Day One.
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I remember FEAR 1 coming out and it being the shit for its time. Then they made fear2.. and 3.... -_-.
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Day 1 didn't make FEAR 1 or 2, though they did make some expansions for FEAR 1.
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