Rumor: "Massive Layoffs" at Canadian Studio Silicon Knights Sources tell us the team has shrunk from 97 to 25 employees.
All but 25 staff at the Canadian video game development studio Silicon Knights have been laid off, according to sources close to the company.
Silicon Knights has not officially confirmed the cuts, but two credible independent sources contacted us with the information over the weekend. One wrote that "Silicon Knights has had massive layoffs. They are now down to a core staff of 25 people." The other said, "It may interest you to note that SK laid off all but 25 employees today."
This outcome follows the St. Catharines, Ontario-based studio receiving three recent funding grants, totaling CDN $8 million: $1 million in 2008, invested by the Ontario Media Development Corporation, $4 million in 2010 via the federal government, and most recently, $3 million in July 2011 via the Ontario government.
Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack stated in July 2011 that the CDN $3 million investment would allow the company to improve its technology, hire 80 new people while keeping 97 current jobs and allow the company to become "self sustaining." We do not know at this stage what went wrong, nor how the studio's payroll has shrunk from 97 to 25 in three months. A source says, "I heard they laid off all of HR including Denis' wife," in reference to Joanne Dyack, SK's director of human resources.
On October 26, another source told 1UP that "you might want to keep an eye on SK in the next few days. If you were connected to many of SK's directors and producers on LinkedIn, you would be noticing a very disproportionate amount of CV updating and connection-making activity. And yes, I have heard that the worst is happening. Stay tuned." Silicon Knights' publicist responded that same day, saying "Silicon Knights is not shutting down and no layoffs have happened at this time."
On behalf of 1UP, I have been looking into the Canadian studio since receiving an anonymous tip in late July. The email came from an account seemingly registered for the sole purpose of sending the message, judging by the username "SK Whistleblower," and alleged that Silicon Knights' planned to leave out names of employees who had left the company in the credits of its latest title, X-Men: Destiny, amongst other criticisms. SK is best known for the critically-acclaimed 2002 GameCube hit Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem and the 2008 Xbox 360 title Too Human.
I spent the next month reaching out to former Silicon Knights employees. Many of those who responded confirmed that they, too, had heard the rumors of their names being removed from the credits of X-Men: Destiny. When the game shipped to stores on September 27, these names were included in a "Special Thanks" section of the credits. Sources say that they were reinstated because of our inquiries to the company; Silicon Knights reps say this is inaccurate and they planned for those names to be included all along.
Since late August, Dyack has agreed to several interview requests on this topic through a publicist, but has delayed speaking, first citing a busy schedule finishing the game, then recently citing a family illness.
Silicon Knights has not responded to our requests for comment on the layoffs.
Honestly I was never sure how they could keep stay open at all, considering they only put out like two games a decade and they're never very big sellers.
--
Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.
SuperJanitor posted... More like: SK goes under, some other company buys all the IP rights, game gets made!
That would be awful. Remember what happened the last time one of SK's IPs was continued by another company? I still cringe to this day when I think of what Eidos did to the Legacy of Kain series.
From: BerkeIium | #010 That would be awful. Remember what happened the last time one of SK's IPs was continued by another company? I still cringe to this day when I think of what Eidos did to the Legacy of Kain series.
You mean they made it into the best video game storyline ever made? Yeah that would be a real tragedy.
From: BerkeIium | #010 SuperJanitor posted... More like: SK goes under, some other company buys all the IP rights, game gets made!
That would be awful. Remember what happened the last time one of SK's IPs was continued by another company? I still cringe to this day when I think of what Eidos did to the Legacy of Kain series.
Remember what happened the last time one of SK's IPs was continued by SK?
Neither do I.
-- Gamefaqs' #1 Testicle Bettor: Proud owner of many testes http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/6553/alec.png
From: DeathChicken | #014 The only bad game in that series (gameplay or storywise) was Blood Omen 2, so I have no idea where this conversation even came from
All I was getting at was that Soul Reaver's original story, where Raziel kills all 5 brothers and absorbs Ariel and Kain into the Reaver and then killed all the vampires by activating the cathedral, would've been okay but not THE BEST, but they had to scrap it because the game was being rushed out. So then they followed it up with Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance which were where the story really became something special.