Employed

Today, after 3 weeks of waiting, the layoffs at Radical finally happened. I didn't loose my job, but a lot of my friends did including the rest of my team entirely (online/front end). From what I hear the severance packages were quite nice, ranging from 14-20 weeks paid salary plus an additional bonus. I'm sure that will give everyone tons of time to find another job in this city where recruitment is extremely competitive.

Local newspapers and online sources are reporting that about 100 people are being let go, but from what I've seen and heard, it's actually close to 160; about half of the entire company.

I have no idea what the new structure is going to be, but we find out tomorrow.

Radical Changes

Looks like some more bad news coming of Radical. As you might have read over the last few months, Radical's parent company, Vivendi Universal and Activision have been working on a merger. That process came to a close last month and we are now known as Activision Blizzard.

As part of that process Activision has been reviewing all the current projects under development by the Vivendi studios. After reviewing the games we are working on at Radical, they have decided to cancel two of the projects; half of the total project of the company. Two of the game teams now have nothing to work on, and that means some major layoffs coming; close to 100 is my best guess.

Thankfully for myself Prototype was not one of the canceled projects (the projects that did get canceled had not yet been announced). Although, that definitely doesn't mean I am safe by any means. However, I do feel confident that I will make it through the transition, as my roll on the team has become somewhat critical.

And even if I don't, Vancouver has a massive game development community. If you happen to walk passed the Radical offices last Thursday afternoon you might have seen some subtle hints left from our competitors reminding us of this very fact.