Layoffs Begin At Daybreak Games

jjohn24680 writes There are several sources who are reporting layoffs at Daybreak Games (formerly Sony Online Entertainment) today. Notable layoffs include Linda "Brasse" Carlson (former Global Community Relations Lead) and Dave Georgeson (former Director of Development / Franchise Director for Everquest, EverQuest II, and EverQuest Next / Landmark). This post from Daybreak Games has some additional information as well.

Comments

Here go the MBA's

[bobbied]

MBA's + Bean Counting = Layoffs

Layoffs = accelerated attrition of your best talent

Loss of best talent = dying company = falling sales = unprofitable

Back to the beginning.

In this case, the death spiral will continue until a leader emerges that actually has a workable vision that fits within the resources left. Given the strained resources of the purchase and being "unprofitable" already, it's going to be interesting to see if they actually HAVE a plan for developing something that will work.

IMHO, it's a long shot... Now that the bean counters and MBA's are out chopping heads, things will get worse before they get better.

Re:Here go the MBA's

[bobbied]

Well there AC, in my 20+ years in the business of software development, I've been let go for financial reasons twice, watched others get canned about a dozen times and had to hand out pink slips myself twice. I've seen how the show is run at a number of places and observed a number of things about layoffs which are common to all of them.

First, and most obvious, layoffs are extremely hard on the staff that remains. Productivity and happiness all take a huge dive for everybody. The workplace feels oppressive and EVERYBODY starts thinking about leaving.

Second, even if you lay off the bottom performers, you are going to loose about the same across the top. So if you take 10% off the bottom, unless you do something drastic, you loose 10% off the top. I worked for a company that *routinely* (about once a year) laid off the lowest 10% performers, and it was a horrible place.

Think about these two things that I'm sure they don't mention to the MBA's while they are in school. An MBA is taught about profit and how to manage costs because that is what you can easily quantify. So, the MBA goes out and thinks that he needs to cut X dollars out of his labor cost to break even, so he tells his staff to prep a list of people to layoff that meets that cost savings goal. The low value employees are *usually* the targets, the underperforming and highest paid are too. Heaven help you if you fall into more than one of those categories.

MBA's do the dollars and cents stuff, and when layoffs are warranted due to dollars and cents it's a BAD situation. When it's driven by poor performance, especially poor enough performance that you just got sold off and to stem the bleeding the new owners start in with the hatchet, it's REALLY BAD.

So, like it or not, this worker bee knows what commonly happens and generally why the MBA's do what they do. I don't envy their position, nor do I want to be in their shoes, but I've seen enough young bucks with the ink still drying on their Master's diplomas to recognize the common mistakes they make over and over and the raft full of "experienced" MBA's who still haven't learned better.

Re:Here go the MBA's

[bobbied]

I don't question the short term plan, but the long term one. I can understand that there are times when the finances simply CANNOT be ignored and you have to do the layoff of some, to save the whole. I worked a company for 10 years that cycled from about 1,500 employees down to 500 and back to 1,800 only to get my pink slip on their second dip to below 500. I listened to the earnings conference calls, I knew *why* it had to be done from the dollars and cents, profit/loss and all that, but I can tell you it's BAD for the company. Sort of like Chemotherapy is BAD for your health, but you may have no choice.

You MUST have a plan to deal with the negative effects on moral and productivity BEFORE you start cutting staff or your little cost cutting measure will turn into a full scale brain drain and bring your company to ruin.

Re:Here go the MBA's

[Areyoukiddingme]

Current employees will want to update their CVs, but this may well keep this company in business long enough to employ more in the long-run.

Unlikely. MBAs persist in the foolish belief that programmers are fungible, short term. The former SOE has 100% software products. The MBA is going to lay off everybody who knows anything about those products, hire a bunch of Chinese engineers, and wonder why the next 4 projects fail.

Or possibly they've just decided that EverQuest should be a trading card game. Fronted by a cartoon.