Disney Interactive Studios has laid off a large number of its staff at multiple studios according to several published reports. While the exact number is unknown at this point (some are saying half of its 700 employees, others say around 250) the affected studios include Junction Point and Black Rock. Last week it was revealed that Disney closed its Propaganda Games studio.
A Disney representative told Variety: "As part of setting a strategic direction for future success in the digital media space, the Disney Interactive Media Group today began a restructuring process," Disney said in a statement.
That "strategic direction" may have a lot to do with its recent acquisition of social game developer Playdom. Is Disney moving out of the core space and focusing on casual social games? We do not know the full extent of the layoffs, but it seems odd that the company would slash the staff at Junction Point when Epic Mickey was one of the company's best-selling games to date.
We will continue to follow this story as it develops.
Comments
Re: Massive Layoffs at Disney Interactive Studios
Not for being an ass, but I have always considered Mickey Mouse a dead license, being alive but any other reason than nostalgia from old people.
Considering that the games was well recieved by critics and gamers alike, it´s still concerning why Disney decided to chop heads because of this game.
This is something that any game company with a reasonable success should not to do to their employees.
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Re: Massive Layoffs at Disney Interactive Studios
I thought Epic Mickey sold well over 1M copies and was a surprise hot-seller for the Wii? Exactly what kind of numbers were they expecting?
Re: Massive Layoffs at Disney Interactive Studios
Well there is a whole lot more than just Epic Mickey to consider. I mean Disney interactive is mostly known for their movie tie in games, all of which probably suck as is their nature. One decent selling game isn't gonna balance out all the crap... granted there's also kingdom hearts, but i'm not sure how much that has to do with disney as opposed to Square Enix
Re: Massive Layoffs at Disney Interactive Studios
Toruk was good enough but that didnt help propaganda games, I think Disney is just choping off higher end game studios as they are rather easy to rebuild when times are better.
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Re: Massive Layoffs at Disney Interactive Studios
While I feel bad for those that lost their jobs, I'm not surprised. Disney is known for making half-assed movie tie-in games.They actually did alright with Split/Second, and Epic Mickey wasn't as bad as many critics stated, but those are few exceptions to a long list of crap.
Re: Massive Layoffs at Disney Interactive Studios
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