Company denies 'dispute' with Capcom, assures layoffs were due to normal dev cycles
Californian developer Bionic Games has denied reports of a financial dispute with Capcom surrounding the upcoming Wii action title Spyborgs.
Citing unnamed sources said to be credible industry members, games news group G4 had heard whispers that Bionic Games had in fact closed down entirely, following a financial dispute with Capcom.
Yet Bionic Games President Michael Haller denied the rumours emphatically. “I assure you that the team is in the studio today fixing bugs and waiting for any requests from Capcom or Nintendo of America.”
Not only did Haller offer an invitation to “see for yourself”, he confirmed that the developer is now moving to its next project as the Wii action title Spyborgs approaches gold status.
It is in fact this transition from one project to the next that seemed to spark speculation. Haller confirmed that the studio has begun moving development staff to the next project, while “laying off those for whom we do not have an immediate position.” Questions surrounding the exact number of layoffs had not been disclosed.
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He assured that this process is customary at “every development studio that I am familiar with.”
“Last week we completed our Beta delivery of Spyborgs to Capcom,” he added.
“We now only need a small team to handle any bugs that might pop up over the next month or so. The game is for all intents and purposes finished and delivered.”
Of the suggestions that Bionic Games was caught in a rift with Spyborgs publisher Capcom over payments, Haller categorically denied Capcom had taken any action to amend its scheduled payments to Bionic Games.
“Capcom has been consistent on all of their payments to us over the entire development period,” he said.
How come I worked at 4 studios and they NEVER lay off the dev team at the end of a cycle..what a load of BULL. The only people let go usually are QA but thats a given.
If that's normal practice, good luck getting good people to work there in the future.
1) Anyone who thinks that game developers don't suffer layoffs a majority of the time after finishing a game need to do their homework. Layoffs when I title is finished are unfortunately a part of this industry, because the "suits" that run the devs are generally very terrible at scheduling and budgeting. This is not debatable. After 10 years in the industry I've learned that this is simply how it is.
2) I know someone at Bionic and the rumors are true, nearly everyone has been laid off. What I heard was that there are only 4 or 5 people left who are taking the game from beta to gold. That means somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 people have been let go.
3) The ironic part of all this is that my friend explained that they're actually being told that Capcom refuses to pay them, and Bionic is out of money. I know people at Capcom, too, but I haven't spoken with any of them... however I can say that Capcom definitely doesn't have a history of not paying developers... so either Bionic is making it up to cover up their ineptitude, or Capcom is refusing to pay because Bionic hasn't delivered what they were supposed to, or something similar.
"Anyone who thinks that game developers don't suffer layoffs a majority of the time after finishing a game need to do their homework"
I never said it didn't happen, just that it's a dated practice and I'd not want to work somewhere that is going to cut me loose as soon as a game is done.
The problem lies in 1 project development companies. I think that a company should have a few projects on the go at once for cost effectiveness and security. If the company isn't big enough to do a few projects at once, then they should consider making smaller games.
I think that a lot of developers are getting wiser to this now, not keeping all their eggs in one basket, making sure they can keep talent on the payroll and busy all the time. Those that don't won't last.
