ZeniMax Online Studios - Mass Layoff

ZeniMax Online's Galway Studio just laid off 300 staff, leaving only a skeleton crew.

Around 300 workers have been dealt a major blow ahead of the Christmas at multinational software company ZeniMax Online Studios, after the business effectively shut down its base in Galway.

…An industry source said: "Around half-a-dozen employees remain, to keep things ticking over, but things have been wound down there. It may be the case that things may pick up again if they have another [game] release."

More information.

More information.

Thats too bad. Somehow, I doubt six people will be able to make another release.
In contrast, I was just reading that Guild Wars 1 has survived 10 years and they only have had a handfull of people running it. I just redownloaded Eso to give it another go while I wait for Black Desert.

Originally Posted by redman5427
Thats too bad. Somehow, I doubt six people will be able to make another release.
In contrast, I was just reading that Guild Wars 1 has survived 10 years and they only have had a handfull of people running it. I just redownloaded Eso to give it another go while I wait for Black Desert.

Blaaaack Desert……omg. I have such hopes for that one. I have a lot of cynicism, too, but…Black Desert looks incredible.

Man it always sucks to get Layoffed on the holidays, but this was expected after the F2P launch of ESO. I'm sure they were all given a nice severance package at least.

Business will probably pick up when the next Fallout, or other MMO is in production. Now don't look at me like that as we all know it's bound to happen some day.

Originally Posted by Aubrielle
Blaaaack Desert……omg. I have such hopes for that one. I have a lot of cynicism, too, but…Black Desert looks incredible.

I completely forgot about Black Desert as no English Login was available when it was mentioned on the sites forum last year. I'll have to take a look again.

My brother inlaw got in the beta.I cant tell you how amazing it is. Gonna suck up a great amount of my time

Clarification/corrections that went out the other day reads pretty differently.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/a…-location.aspx

It seems like it was a customer service staff reduction, it happened months ago (august), it was 50 people, and the Galway location is still operational(?).

What's weird is that paper also ran a story about how 300 people were laid off from the same facility in June leaving only 100 - same writer. Not sure if *that* report was correct either, but there were summer layoffs in customer service a couple months after the console launch.

http://connachttribune.ie/galway-job…software-firm/

Not sure the weirdly similar story is related to the alleged inaccuracies of this one though. Writer referenced the old data by mistake or something? Maybe they meant to reference total layoffs so far this year?

Edit: It looks like the industry source that indicated half a dozen people remaining on the site might be this Reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscroll…loyees/cy3hzau

If it's accurate then yes it does look like they're winding down their Galway customer service operation by not renewing 6 month contracted employees. It sounds believable and the moderator suggests they have demonstrated proof they worked there. They also suggest that rather than mass layoffs that this has been a long sporadic shrinking of that location since september 2014.

Customer service you say?
Maybe they're relocating it to India like EA?

Originally Posted by joxer
Customer service you say?
Maybe they're relocating it to India like EA?

That or consolidating it all in Maryland instead of having a separate European sales region support center. I hear they're going with a new "Radiant Customer Service" automated system. Results are expected to be hilarious.

Black Desert Online web site says, when I tried to access the pre-order link: "Your country is restricted from accessing our service."

Hello, Brazil is still on Earth !!!

Originally Posted by henriquejr
Black Desert Online web site says, when I tried to access the pre-order link: "Your country is restricted from accessing our service."

Hello, Brazil is still on Earth !!!

That's really lame!! That sucks…I hope they remedy that soon. Brazil seems like kind of a huge country to leave out…