What must you do when you’re one of many hundreds of tech employees who’ve simply been laid off? Take a coastal journey or be part of the gig financial system till the market recovers—not less than, that’s in line with ex-Sony Pc Leisure Europe president Chris Deering.
Deering, who led Sony’s European PlayStation enterprise from 1995 to 2005, in contrast sweeping cuts within the gaming business to being “like the pandemic”, whereas downplaying the position of company greed and meting out controversial recommendation to impacted employees.
“You’re going to have to take a few, figure out how to get through it, drive an Uber or whatever,” he stated on My Good Console podcast. “Find a cheap place to live and go to the beach for a year.”
Over 20,000 employees within the gaming business have been laid off since 2023
Since 2023, round 645,000 tech employees have been laid off—over 20,000 of them are within the video gaming business which has just lately been hit laborious.
This yr via Might alone, greater than 10,000 gaming employees misplaced their jobs, surpassing the entire variety of layoffs within the business for the whole yr of 2023.
Sony laid off 900 PlayStation workers (round 8% of its workforce) in February and shut its London Studio.
Different recreation builders, together with Microsoft and Unity, have equally downsized their studios this yr, slicing almost 4,000 jobs in the beginning of the yr.
On the time, Sony’s then-CEO Jim Ryan stated the cost-cutting measure was to “streamline our resources”.
In the meantime, Unity’s interim chief Jim Whitehurst, defined that the corporate is “reducing the number of things we are doing in order to focus on our core business and drive our long-term success and profitability,” in an inner memo.
Regardless of this, Deering stated: “I don’t think it’s fair to say that the resulting layoffs have been greed.”
“I always tried to minimize the speed in which we added staff because I always knew there would be a cycle,” he added, earlier than noting that, “if the money isn’t coming in from the consumers on the last game, it’s going to be hard to justify spending the money for the next game”.
However don’t spend too lengthy at a seashore home
Deering is an business veteran who labored at Atari earlier than becoming a member of Sony and was a significant participant within the launch of the corporate’s first console, the PlayStation, and the PlayStation 2.
He went on to turn out to be chairman at Codemasters, a racing video video games firm, till 2010 and is presently an advisor for Cudo Ventures, a Cryptocurrency Mining Software program firm.
Regardless of the present state of the gaming business, Deering assured that he’s “optimistic about the future… even people who have just recently been laid off.”
“I think it’s probably very painful for the managers, but I don’t think that having skill in this area is going to be a lifetime of poverty or limitation,” he added. “It’s still where the action is.”
“These things do recover sometimes a lot faster than you might think when all is very precarious.”
It’s why, after advising laid-off employees to attend out the present downturn on the seashore or as an Uber driver, Deering cautioned them to not disconnect from all of it for too lengthy.
“Keep up with your news,” he concluded. “Keep up with it, because once you get off the train, it’s much harder.”
Not everybody within the recreation business was on board with Deering’s feedback. The video games division of the IWGB union tweeted that they confirmed the necessity to unionize: “Without it, we’re left with ‘let them eat cake,’” the union wrote.
22000 recreation devs have been laid off. Chris Deering’s response: “Go to the beach, drive an Uber.”
With a robust union, we will get what we deserve – work-life stability and job safety.
With out it, we’re left with “let them eat cake”
Be a part of our union at present: https://t.co/Xm08SjCMBI https://t.co/bg43JbySrs
— IWGB Recreation Staff (@IWGB_GW) September 10, 2024
Fortune reached out to Sony, Deering, and Cudo Ventures for remark.
