Rockstar Vienna Closes Its Doors

slashflood writes "Rockstar has unexpectedly closed its Rockstar Vienna development office, particularly known for its Grand Theft Auto Xbox conversion, laying off more than 100 employees. Confirmation has come in the form of a weblog post by Rockstar Vienna employee Jurie Horneman: 'This morning, as I came into work, I was greeted by security guards. It turned out Take-Two has closed their Rockstar Vienna office, effective immediately, 'due to the challenging environment facing the video game business and our Company during this platform transition'.'"

Comments

Not such a hasty layoff.

[Kerr]

As posted by tobe in the comments section of the blog mentioned above.

Well, a couple of notes: Austrian labor law basically doesn't allow one to put people on the streets right away. We're getting paid for a while yet. From what I've seen and heard, the two founders of the studio are bending over backwards to make this process more humane than is absolutely required. We did receive information on possible jobs in other T2 studios, on recruiters, etc. It's not the most lavish process, but it's something.

I think the way the layoff was handled makes sense, within the context of a typical public company. You want to make the transition quick - it'll be a shock anyway, so why not make it as short as possible? Imagine if you'd known about it for weeks but couldn't have told anyone... terrible. You want to make sure people don't do anything stupid and you want to protect your assets, hence the security guards. It's assuming the worst of people, but at least you're safe.

On a higher level, you want to make sure the company is run efficiently, and you want to be seen running the company efficiently by shareholders. Capitalism at work - T2 opening a studio in Shanghai fits nicely somehow.

Naturally, down in the trenches it feels different, and it would've been nice to work for a company that handles this differently. But very few do.

The only criticism I can make is that this is a very drastic solution - if there was a problem, couldn't this have been foreseen earlier, and dealt with differently?

This guy adds a lot that the article, and blog miss out. It doesn't make the news any better, especially to the ex-staff of rockstar vienna, but concerning employment law, damn; am I glad to live in Europe.
A further comment claimed that in America, companies have the right to lay you off, and stop your pay -tomorrow-
Surely that isn't right?

I'd be pissed

[9mm Censor]

Not that I lost my job, but that I woke up for nothing.