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

[Mr. Freeman]

>As with most things, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle

That's a myth. It's almost always perpetuated by those making asinine claims. It's simple, you make an absurd claim and then when the reasonable people show up, you simply attack them for being "too extreme".

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]

If the company they purchased didn't have anything of value going on, why would they buy them?

All I'm saying is that once you start the cycle of layoffs, you simply MUST have a viable recovery plan that assumes your best and brightest will voluntarily follow those you involuntarily escorted out the door, you are in trouble. And I'm not talking about a "Let's work smarter AND harder" pep talk at the next all hands meeting, I'm talking about actually doing something that will work to make the company money so everybody can stay employed.

It's rare that anybody can walk into an organization from the outside, accurately asses the strengths and weaknesses, and come up with even a viable short term plan in a few months that takes it from loosing money to break even. It's even more remote that this plan will be successful if it STARTS by laying off a lot of people who are well known because everybody will now be walking around thinking they have a target on them. Sort term, this goes badly..

Re:Here go the MBA's

[CanEHdian]

Correct. "to better position our newly [X] for future growth opportunities (..) we have had to make some tough choices including realignment of resources." has MBA written all over it. It does not automatically mean it doesn't make sense, but if your smart people start thinking "sinking ship" they will be gone.

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.

Re:Here go the MBA's

[Areyoukiddingme]

like, why the fuck bother with the takeover in the first place?

In the case of the ongoing collapse formerly known as SOE, they buy it for the trademarks and copyrights. Watch for bastardized bundles of patheticness bearing the EverQuest name showing up on mobile phones by this time next year.

In the case of Nokia, that was done for the purpose of utterly eliminating and destroying a Windows Phone competitor, in the certain knowledge that Windows can and does "succeed" when it has no surviving rivals. Because they've done it before.

It was Ballmer being Ballmer, doing the only thing he knows how to do. He is, was, and ever shall be a monopolist, and he only knows the plays of a monopolist. The fact that he can not treat Samsung and Apple the same way no doubt wrankled in his sodden breast, but he took some solace in extorting patent royalties for every Android-equipped device.

It's inexplicable to anyone as innocent as yourself, who thinks all that guff he was fed in school about playing fair, and level playing fields, and value for money, and benefiting the customer is actually real. It isn't. None of it is, as exhibited by the behavior of every large multinational corporation, which are universally dominated by sociopaths. Those phrases are for other people, to such minds.

It's easy to understand, as long as you can understand a certain special kind of insanity.

Re:Here go the MBA's

[StikyPad]

That's a myth. It's almost always perpetuated by those making asinine claims. It's simple, you make an absurd claim and then when the reasonable people show up, you simply attack them for being "too extreme".

As with most things, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle

"Layoffs..."

[Loopy]

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

How to lose money

[Tridus]

The public face of your most prominent franchise is under performing staff?

Yeah, good luck with that. The fans see the writing on the wall and will bail. The top talent sees half the staff suddenly gone, and will bail. Unless the plan is to cancel a bunch of games, they've just obliterated any value in this acquisition.

agreed with bobbied

[aepervius]

"worker bee" have brain too, and in many cases in small enough organization, have enough access to the financials and the decision process to see how bad and stupidly short sighted some MBA decision are. On the other hand MBA's in financials have most of the time neither the overview of the business process nor the understanding of the fine working, as a general rule. There might be exception, but they are rare. That you use the monicker "worker bee" as if we were brainless drone shows a lot more about your lack of understanding of a highly educated workforce (as it mostly is in IT) than it says about bobbied's statement.