Elite Dangerous developer Frontier sanctions hiring freeze, spending cuts, and layoffs

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I really really hope they nail the Age of Sigmar release and get back into profits

That's one of the publishing releases. I mean take a guess. The division is gonna be shut down. How good is morale on the crew. Compare to past releases, how good is the sales pitching, marketing? I'm no friend of hype, but you gotta increase awareness to sell copies. That wasn't the forte with the publishing division.
I'd say the lineups weren't really all bad. Risky and a couple would have sold far better with more clamour around their release. My opinion.
Age of Sigmar is a strong brand but it won't sell by itself either. Well, WH40K is strong brand, I'm not so sure about Age of Sigmar, yet.

 

[Northpin]

That's one of the publishing releases

Is it?
Nope, it isn't. It's a title developed and published by Frontier

 

[rootsrat]

That's one of the publishing releases.

No, it's not. It's being developed by FDEV on the Cobra engine

 

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No, it's not. It's being developed by FDEV on the Cobra engine

Really? I have maybe confused it with another WH40K then, which maybe already released - hard to tell from the minimum activity on forum and what I hear from news.

 

[zimms]

You are thinking of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters (that's a mouthful ) which was part of Frontier Foundry.

 

[amigacooke]

You are thinking of Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters (that's a mouthful ) which was part of Frontier Foundry.

Didn't Frontier buy the development studio?

 

[zimms]

Yes (afaik).

 

[Markov Chaney]

Actually i don't notice any of that.

Strange, because what you wrote below seems in agreement...

• PZ and JWE2 seems to be maintaining the flow of PDLC and free updates they got over the years.

OK, so the two that didn't need fixing haven't been fixed. That's a pretty basic piece of business thinking. That's "Maintain" and until FDev is no longer burning there isn't going to be must "Invest." Since these two are working they certainly weren't going to Exit.

• F1M23, seems to be improved over F1M22, but still the revenues it's producing are under expectations

So it got better after the new board were in place. There you go.

• And not at last, ED seen some further apparent budgetary cuts - less interactions from CM team, less streams, less visible activity (which would IMO imply they are stretched with many other activities behind the scenes), while cutting 25% of the cadence of Updates (only 3 this year compared to 4 last year).

OK, so the drop in cadence shows it's a Maintain not an Invest, as above, and also speaks to my point - three half-decent updates are better than four terrible releases. Conversely, that shows it's Maintain, not Tolerate. You could even argue that the focus on Odyssey shows an "Invest" because that's the new thing.

Dropping the non-dev activities doesn't tell us anything about the core software business, but it does tell you they acknowledged the outreach wasn't helping the perception. What did help the perception of quality was better quality.

I really really hope they nail the Age of Sigmar release and get back into profits

Me too.

Is there anything they could drop now? Other than publishing, which is a different business and involves FDev thinking about two things at once? That's seldom a good idea unless you are BIG (0,000s of employees) and set up for it.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

[mod hat on]

I am only going to post this once.

Having been made redundant myself earlier this year, this is going to be a very difficult time for some of the people at FDEV. Many of them will undoubtedly read this thread.

Please be senstive about what you post and your choice of words.

Sorry to hear that mate.

I work for a highly successful software company and even our projected growth is very low this year and we've also had some layoffs. Clients are being very cautious signing new contracts for projects and the scale of projects being offered as generally smaller, meaning our short-medium term forecast isn't very positive. The hope is next year things will recover a bit, but its not something to bet the farm on.

While we can all sit here and pontificate about what FD could have/should have/ought to have done, the simple fact is that its not a good climate for software development at the moment, and its not the only industry affected.

 

[Cosmo]

If Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin flops they'll need to cut more spending.

 

[Yure]

I reckon FDEV hired a bunch of temporary graphic artists and programmers for the update that just released and the forthcoming mechanics. Once it has been established, those folks are going to be laid off because the bulk of the work is complete. They might offer permanent positions to those workers that showed exceptional skill and work ethic (With wages also taken into consideration). It's just a business folks, at the end they need to be able to turn a profit to be able to stay in business and keep most jobs and the game alive. Those that are getting laid off, while extremely sad, now have a certain amount of time they can add to their resume plus experience gained. And most likely will be called to other projects FDEV starts.

 

[Schmack]

I reckon FDEV hired a bunch of temporary graphic artists and programmers for the update that just released and the forthcoming mechanics. Once it has been established, those folks are going to be laid off because the bulk of the work is complete. They might offer permanent positions to those workers that showed exceptional skill and work ethic (With wages also taken into consideration). It's just a business folks, at the end they need to be able to turn a profit to be able to stay in business and keep most jobs and the game alive. Those that are getting laid off, while extremely sad, now have a certain amount of time they can add to their resume plus experience gained. And most likely will be called to other projects FDEV starts.

Most companies won't hire "temps", they'll contract them, ergo no layoff would be needed. Companies typically go above and beyond to avoid taking on additional headcount where revenue isn't received already, even if projected revenue looks promising and would seem to require additional headcount to realize. The amount of money invested in a new hire is often much greater than just their salary and benefits.

 

[Old Duck]

While we can all sit here and pontificate about what FD could have/should have/ought to have done, the simple fact is that its not a good climate for software development at the moment, and its not the only industry affected.

If Frontier had followed all my own personal "shoulds and oughts", they'd probably be in more financial trouble, because my wants are so niche. Even if Frontier had made Elite cater "to the masses", it would still likely be in trouble - just look at once-popular games like Fortnite, which are also struggling.

I think the gaming industry, and the software industry in general, is undergoing a version of the ".com" bust, except the bubble is bursting in slow motion rather than a dramatic pop. I went through this myself on mobile devices a few years ago, because of the flood of cheap apps for devices like the iPhone and iPad. We just couldn't compete with literally hundreds of clones (most of them inferior IMO) all vying for consumer attention. So I feel the pain of those who worked tirelessly to bring a product to market (particularly the coders and artists), only to see market forces outside their control scuttle their hard work. Sometimes more is NOT better, despite people like Tim Cook bragging about "billions of apps".

That's not to say that Frontier is blameless for their current economic situation, but even if they did everything "right", I don't think they would have been spared this economic storm hitting the entire industry.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

The division is gonna be shut down. How good is morale on the crew. Compare to past releases, how good is the sales pitching, marketing? I'm no friend of hype, but you gotta increase awareness to sell copies. That wasn't the forte with the publishing division.

say what? are you sure? I still have a bunch of DLC to get through on that game.

bloody disgrace if so.... ok i get maybe the PvP area may need server support so that could be shut down......... but the 4 player / or single player even part... that is a disgrace.

imo all of these games with small numbers of MP and no need for a server backend should have P2P fallback baked in.

I am getting fed up with games with no real requreiment for server support getting shut down, its just planned obsolesence.

is the division 2 safe?

 

[zimms]

say what? are you sure? I still have a bunch of DLC to get through on that game.

bloody disgrace if so.... ok i get maybe the PvP area may need server support so that could be shut down......... but the 4 player / or single player even part... that is a disgrace.

imo all of these games with small numbers of MP and no need for a server backend should have P2P fallback baked in.

I am getting fed up with games with no real requreiment for server support getting shut down, its just planned obsolesence.

is the division 2 safe?

I don't think they were talking about the Ubisoft game 'The Division'.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I don't think they were talking about the Ubisoft game 'The Division'.

ahh ok. DOH! sorry a bunch of games i like have been shut down of late so am a bit twitchy on the subject.

games as a service.............. i am definitely not a fan!. (indeed part of the thing i liked about Elite was that David Braben said if the game was shut down in the distant future , the server code would be released to the community so it could continue if there was a will for it.

(that said now i am older and a little wiser i cant say i am holding my breath)

 

[Fnord Velkor]

...
And you will notice this run of half-decent content, with bugfixes too, has appeared just after this board shuffle.
...

Oh dear ...

 

[Agony_Aunt]

If Frontier had followed all my own personal "shoulds and oughts", they'd probably be in more financial trouble, because my wants are so niche. Even if Frontier had made Elite cater "to the masses", it would still likely be in trouble - just look at once-popular games like Fortnite, which are also struggling.

I think the gaming industry, and the software industry in general, is undergoing a version of the ".com" bust, except the bubble is bursting in slow motion rather than a dramatic pop. I went through this myself on mobile devices a few years ago, because of the flood of cheap apps for devices like the iPhone and iPad. We just couldn't compete with literally hundreds of clones (most of them inferior IMO) all vying for consumer attention. So I feel the pain of those who worked tirelessly to bring a product to market (particularly the coders and artists), only to see market forces outside their control scuttle their hard work. Sometimes more is NOT better, despite people like Tim Cook bragging about "billions of apps".

That's not to say that Frontier is blameless for their current economic situation, but even if they did everything "right", I don't think they would have been spared this economic storm hitting the entire industry.

To be fair, Fortnite is pretty long in the tooth now. No game lasts forever and few remain the flavour of the month for more than 5 years. Its had a good run though.

 

[Markov Chaney]

Oh dear ...

Sometimes it is the cause. With you it's always zebras, huh?

 

[Northpin]

Strange, because what you wrote below seems in agreement...

OK, so the two that didn't need fixing haven't been fixed. That's a pretty basic piece of business thinking. That's "Maintain" and until FDev is no longer burning there isn't going to be must "Invest." Since these two are working they certainly weren't going to Exit.

So it got better after the new board were in place. There you go.

OK, so the drop in cadence shows it's a Maintain not an Invest, as above, and also speaks to my point - three half-decent updates are better than four terrible releases. Conversely, that shows it's Maintain, not Tolerate. You could even argue that the focus on Odyssey shows an "Invest" because that's the new thing.

Dropping the non-dev activities doesn't tell us anything about the core software business, but it does tell you they acknowledged the outreach wasn't helping the perception. What did help the perception of quality was better quality.


Me too.

Is there anything they could drop now? Other than publishing, which is a different business and involves FDev thinking about two things at once? That's seldom a good idea unless you are BIG (0,000s of employees) and set up for it.

Nope, still not seeing it. At least not seeing it as an Improvement for Elite.

I meant that PZ and JWE2 went on as nothing happened. No visible changes here IMO.
F1M23 got improved based on feedback received from F1M22 players - not seeing any relation to the new management.

The only part i would see related to the new management would be budgeting cuts for Elite, we getting 3 updates instead of 4 and a visible reduction in the CM team interactions.
Why? Maybe because the new CEO is a Zoo/Dinosaurs aficionado, which would favor development of zoo/dinos francizes and not favor ED?