here's the link: www.ign.com/articles/star-citizen-developer-cloud-imperium-games-confirms-layoffs-as-former-staff-hit-out-at-relocation-plan

"Colocate" is pretty much the same as "consolidate". They moved the developers to the SAME office location so hey are al working together

Maybe CIG are planning on making the ongoing support for SC to be based more around Manchester when the game come closer to being more complete - no need to have offices all around the world and save a ton of money. Big TAX relief for game development in UK.

It makes sense to have your entire team in one location. Not spread out across multiple countries. How many games studios were split out as bad as CIG has been

Most likely the relocation is related to tax changes for businesses in the US on development reliefs are now effectively gone. So, moving headquarters or registration of the company from US to say the UK is going to save them millions of dollars, my assumption on what they are doing. With that (being in IT management myself) I've been through restructure before, and it sucks, miserable feeling for leaders in the company (at least the company I work for, we took it hard). Most likely those high level positions were asked to relocate as well and the employee turned down the relocation requirement, leaving CIG no choice. My view on quality employees is they are rare and you do everything you can to keep them and shift them around. However, if they say "no, I'm not doing that", have to respect their choice and it starts to suck for everyone. My guess is, most tech companies that have high development costs will get choked out or move to another country. That is what caused our restructure last year before the new laws took effect and we were screwed.

You've got to realise that a lot of people have family commitments and would be unwilling to relocate to another country surely?

Wagner said he just hired some star citizen devs to work for star atlas. CIG is starting to become the farm team for star atlas like the BMM team.

Really not sure about this. CIG is relocating and not all of the staff hokding the moved roles can move. That could be for literally any reason. Family. Health. Money. We just dont know. On the other hand, CIG is hiring for approximately 40 positions at the moment. Im just not sure where the story is here.

Seems to be pretty 101 to me, when they were on big expansion and hiring sprees they went with the 101 strategy of opening offices where the talent is. As the focus moved to centralization, they probably can now afford to cut and have say the UK studio absorb more work or even have already hired people there to replace the ones they now layoff. If that wasn't enough, CIG themselves admitted they been downsizing US gamedev roles for years now, evidenced by the financial data they publish, in 2022 the number of game dev positions in the US was already at its lowest point since 2015.

It's now been over a decade of development, and CIG are now funding two offices in the US and one in Canada. Cost cutting is not too surprising in this economic climate, have a look at the rest of the gaming industry.

Companies grow and shrink, they bloat and they fast, they strategize and consolidate. But is this company going under.. not a chance. Can't rush perfection now can we. Keep waiting fancy pants.

E.g. we're losing too much money so, we're reducing the amount of (expensive) places we're renting to save money. With regards to the firing of the higherups, that's agreed. "You can saty foir 6 months to a year and then you can leave the company with X-million". The problem is the focus and priority ofn the shareholders and not the product and/or workforce and/or customers. Check what Boeing did with it's 737 MAX. If the workforce is saying: "I'm not flying in that thing unless I have a deathwish". Because how much in the red figures have these companies got into the last 5-10 years?

They moved their main office to UK. They want people to come back in office. Those that don't want to move, can't move, or are prevented from moving in some way are getting axed. This is normal. Some people take having to actually come IN to the office to do their job "toxic". They were offered relocation stipends. Some people can't move to the UK for various reasons. Her idea of "last minute" may very well have been given 90 days. Read laws to know the minimum time. I'm in no way a CIG boot licker but people are freaking out over shit that makes good business sense. It's cheaper to be in the UK for CIG. They want people back in office. End of story. This isn't abnormal at all. Not the least bit concerned.

I'm in the corporate world, they hire when they need to get bunch of "their" immediate task completed then throw ppl out like garbage.

layoffs = end of contract period they don't need the STAFF of SQ42 at this point because they have more freedom with "how things are done" due to it being a STAGE progression game so it only has to "LOOK AND FEEL" like it functions correctly Doesn't actually have to "FUNCTION" like the PU does. the PU is slowly building out parts to a big machine the diffrence between a simulation and a game is bascially a game doesn't need to invent the process and function of a mechanic. you can skip steps it's like the moon landing then and now . you have to show the people what can be done without doing it then you eventually attract the people who see what you are tyring to do and KNOW how to do it. todd leaving he's a lead director for linier story games thats his thing Also i think we really need laws across the globe that protect us from propaganda and gas lighting by their media platforms like spectrum

Ok maybe Todd Papy and the rest of the devs that were "unrelocated" could hopefully come together and restart and help another guy with his space game called "Limit Theory" here in the U.S. would be epic. I think he is out of Louisiana. He had to stop because it was a solo project and he got overwhelmed but his videos of his progress were ahead of it's time.

The way venture businesses make an offer to a software enterprise goes along these lines: "we can pay this much but you need to increase your EBITDA by that much" (meaning profit). The quickest way to increase profit is by cutting costs. The easiest way to cut costs in a way that's hard to notice is by mass layoffs. The new owner doesn't know yet how much staff is needed to run said enterprise, therefore, it's a very popular move. My guess is they're cutting costs to sell a part of the company or just get more investors. BTW colocate usually means to share a location with someone or something.

Can’t wait for DG360 to break out some dances while receiving donos while reacting to this making nonsense points

With rising costs all over the world it makes sense to consolidate staff in one main location instead of trying to manage 4 offices all over the world

Time to push back the rest of the roadmap a couple of dozen years!

It's because every other studio are laying off devs em masse, so now is a best time to do the same with minimal questions. It was mostly the higher paid devs that got laid off and CIG are going get devs that'll accept a low salary. CIG wants to maximize profits from their pyramid scheme they've been running for 10+ years.

Thx for the info Grumpy. Lets just hope things get better now. CIG stated on IGN they are improving efficiency of star citizen development now by relocating teams closer.I mean, some of those guys have been in a company for 9 years etc doesnt mean that their team was doing well. Look for past 10 years of SC. Game is 20 percent developed. 3.23 is a nice thing now, they actually did something. Lets just hope for da best in upcoming years.... or decades

The layoffs at CIG could mark the beginning of the end of Star Citizen as a game.

Isn't Bouffert a radical Quebec successionist? She was pretty upset when Jared said Quebec was part of Canada. I'd take anything she says with a grain of salt.

Microsoft lays off 1,900 people. Cig lays off 6 people. No one says anything about Microsoft but everyone erupts into chaos over cig. 6 people really isn’t all that bad, it’s unfortunate, but these people that left are unwilling to leave their homes to maintain a job. It’s understandable.

CIG being condescending to their own employees? no way. you'd think the "unnecessary condescensionTM" clown masters would never step so low! i am shocked!

Is Tony Z still with CIG ?

I think one of the issues Dan Truffin and some of the others had with this is that they would actually have to leave the EU when moving to England. Britain left the EU 4 years ago now and they still have issues with their supply chains. But yeah, basically CIG wanted to "create" jobs in Manchester, but rather than adding devs to the total, they tried to move devs over from other countries. And when they didn't comply, they were offered to leave instead. Low blow CIG, very low blow.

Nope, you are right. I was waiting for somebody to see it and say it. Asian countries have been making money this whole time. But then Asian game studios didn't try to become multimedia cinema houses. Game critics and pundits bear the responsibility for these layoffs. You are supposed to become a game developer to make games. Far too many Game developers, for example, Neil Drukkman, want to be movie writers or animators. The result was obvious. Overblown game budgets for games that sell millions yet never turn a big enough profit to make up for their cost. Do you think Neil, or Kojimmies are going to fall on their swords? Nah, how about all the game critics who insulted gamers and games that didn't adhere to their "sophisticated" taste? Nope. Egos of comfortable kids who are now in charge of people's livelihoods and costing the Western AAA game industry dearly. But nobody wants to say these words out loud.

First of all. Yes it sucks for the people working at these companies. Yes, when these "transformations" happen, toxicity goes up in the studio that is about to be downsized while t's awesome for those in the growing studio. Yes, we all know. This game has been in development forever. But are these layoffs a sign of issues at the company? No. Not at all. Their funds keep going up. Job security at CIG is really good . So what is it? It's the follow the sun model at work. What companies are doing these days is keep themselves flexible from local issues. Say a political or economical issue, conflicts, inflation or deflation. Market potential. Productivity issues and so on. One team can have people working in different locations. The issue with FTS is that in many cases team members in different locations don't integrate well and require a lot of work to move a team from storming to performing state. So that's it. For whatever reason like it or not top management has decided to invest in a new studio while disinvesting in the other. As simple as that. These does result in internal conflicts and people get upset because they did a good job but due to decisions at the top they don't get a good outcome. But tomorrow, this company will have new people doing the exact same thing, with the exact same outcome and likely will save some money. Or not, and in that case another transformation happens.

Maybe this "restructuring" will put the right people in the right places and we "might" actually get a playable game "eventually"

Your name is eye… but say C.E.G… say it like your name. see-eye-gee - and yes, I know it’s a second language… we all have them.

Speculations

Odd. Testing KZfaq, testing game.

Darek Smart was right!

AHHH THE SKY IS FALLING

Add a zero. $100,000 to $60,000.

colocate (verb): Definition Кирија је превисока! Потрошио сам новац од кирије на дрогу!

Has the Dumb Guy already reacted?

I would have defaulted to taking the lady seriously if I hadn't seen her blue hair profile picture. Sorry but not sorry... Now I take everything she says with the biggest grain of salt imaginable. She should have never been hired.

Fan of the channel mate. I'd just like to give feedback on something. I don't know if you've got a light too close to the camera or something, but you're looking a little washed out and your lighting could do with some adjusting. Have a good one man.

I agree with most of what you say in the video, but your title is probably going to get you a lot of flak because your video doesn't show that it's bad, it shows that it's basically just business as normal, better than average for the industry, and probably even *good* for CIG in the long run. There's been rumours for a while now that Todd and his family weren't happy living in Germany and wanted to be back in Washington. Before we even knew he left, his LinkedIn had his updated location as being back in Washington State. Not surprising all all. When www.youtube.com/@ThePilot_ left his job in Austin last year, it was to move to take care of family and he couldn't do his job remotely so he had to leave CIG. The overwhelming majority of confirmed people who left were from either the LA office or the Austin office. The Austin office hosts CIG's physical servers, but other than that... there's not a lot going on there that couldn't be done better in Manchester, Frankfurt, or Montreal so I can really see CIG wanting to shutter both of them. LA is really expensive. And Austin is in Texas, which has trouble keeping the power on if it's too cold. Or too hot. The US is not like Germany. Since moving here, I haven't had a power outage that lasted more than a few seconds. But in the US, depending on where you are, if the power goes out, it's going to be hours before it comes back, maybe days. When you look at CIG's website, most of the 40+ positions available are in Manchester, most of the rest are Frankfurt, an a few are in Montreal. They're hiring someone for sales in Austin and *nothing* for LA. Ever since Zyloh made his post that the Austin studio wasn't going anywhere, and I started thinking about it, I suspect that as soon as they can figure out a way to transfer the physical servers for CIG from one country to another, Austin will be gone. And I'm guessing that LA is only still there because Chris and Sandy like LA and want the studio there in case they want to move back with their girls. Annie Bouffard was a bit of a surprise, but she seemed like the type of manager to be very protective of her team and take it personally if she didn't feel they were being treated well enough. I haven't seen confirmation of anyone else from the Montreal office leaving, but it is not hard to see her getting pissed off about people being given the choice to relocate with their job or find a new one, anywhere in CIG, getting into an argument with her manager, getting blown off, taking it higher, not getting any other results, and then resigning and making a public statement. To be fair to her, even if CIG wasn't doing this as a stealth layoff, it's a pretty common tactic in the US. Company wants to downsize but doesn't want the bad press from layoffs. They move as many workers as possible to Working from Home. Once the office is basically gutted, they transfer its functions to the regional headquarters. When that's done, they end WFH and tell everyone they need them working in the office now. Which could be a 2-6 hour drive, one way, for a lot of the WFH staff. They resign instead of RTO. The company gets its layoffs without the bad press. If I were a employed by a US company in another country and started seeing colleagues in other offices getting the option to either relocate or resign, I'd be concerned and probably more than a little freaked out.

Buy more ships if you ever want to see a game...?

everytime that intro rolls i lite a blunt and move my body

Thanks for covering this too. The next 2-3 years will get interesting :)

"Squadron 42, that game you all paid for but we decided to make seperately so we could sell it to you again after you already paid us to make it, well that game is finished now, so all the developers are going to come over to Star Citizen, which we've basically been leaving to rot for about a decade as we can only monetize whales so much in one product! So expect big things, all the devs are going to be working on it full time!" "Awesome!" "Sadly we've fired all the devs!" "???" "Buy another Jpeg of a spaceship please"

Bracing to hear this nonsense of being bad?

I think most of this comes from the UK government gives big tax breaks to games and film companys that work in the UK. So proberly just a move to save money

CIG doesn’t do anything normal they pull these patches out of their asses based off of marketing archetypes designed to make millions off these cutely named rationed slices. As long as the backers tolerate this the sham will continue

Big ups! great coverage of star citizen to scratch my itch to see this project crash and burn.

What's funny is for so long they had touted how having offices across the world was what allowed them to get so much done, how they could go to bed and hand their work off to someone and then wake up and find stuff done.

meh

CIG doesn't care. I guess players assumed that CIG was somehow better than the big, bad, evil publisher. But over the past decade they have turned into something worse. A hype machine that rarely delivers on the concepts it sells to it's backers. They have zero accountability and in the end it will likely ruin the project. Developers don't respect them, a large portion of the gaming community doesn't respect them and whales of SC at some point will no longer be able to sustain their poor business practices. Hats off to those devs who got forced out of their jobs. o7

I never understood opening so many offices- unless they had to go to get the talent. Still, they knew they would be shrinking over the next couple yers as 42 came out. Its a major waste of money. I'd bet the farm the Roberts started a side business in real estate - buy the buildings using loans against CIG, then charge CIG rent to pay the mortage. Such a lucrative way to make a boat load of money off the back of your own company.

CIG not CEG

Great content as usual, thank you... and guess what ad rolled after the end of your video.....lets say it had ships on it...LMAO

You do realize every multi million dollar corporation down to a mom and pop company has these same style complaints, same butthurt with employees, same drama? Show us on the bear where CIG hurt you. LOL

Defends Microsoft.......

Bro the entire industry is downsizing. Who the fuck cares about this microscopic situation with CIG while thousands else where are being effected. Considering the scope of whats going on CIG is doing pretty fucking good dude. They are trying to maintain jobs and this is how they make the money stretch. Is it that hard?

Megacorps leaning on AI now. Production prices are about to drop through the floor, marketing will EXPLODE, most coders are about to need to find new jobs.

in 2024 we all know what "Toxic" means... Dont we? No offence to her but she sounds like a sjw karen but i have very little to go on. Cig realising having 4 studios all over the world is inefficient, some people didnt want to move to relocate to new studio. Big whoop.

I can't watch your video. You say you don't know certain words, but you sure do know how to curse.

lets go Grumpy! lovin' the news updates!

Garbage game. I got it in 2015 it has some generic ships and weapons. Gameplay loop does not even exist after 10 years. I own this Garbage.

"... it's not the type of stuff that I want to talk about anymore." How's that stuff you don't want to talk about and games you'd rather play thing going?

If you haven't seen the new Sora and Game making AI demos, you should. SC is in big fuggin trouble.

I like to check the game state from time to time. So what happened that forced these layoffs? SC was in development way before covid hiring spree all studios had, so why all of a sudden veteran crew leaving the team in, I have no idea, stage of development? I know that sc fans are rabid when it comes to criticism, but 12 years without any finished product makes you twist your finger at your temple.

Mark my words, CIG will find themselves in a class action lawsuit for improper use of funds. I'm willing to bet Chris Roberts also went to Epstien's island a time or two.

I love ya, Grumpy!

either it is money or they trying to find a safe place for to hide when the game shits its self and dont work

The game should have been finished five years ago. It's incredible that the project has managed to shuffle along this far. Have they finished the fighter weapon "rebalance" yet? No? Theatres of War? Where was that? If the game wasn't a massive failure - why does it look *exactly* like a complete failure? Still just two maps for AC? It was beyond a joke in 2020. It's 2024.

Relocate not co-locate lol writers today just make up or say so many weird things to describe sh1t we have words for already ;ol

Grumpy... Don't take this the wrong way Bro! But we NEED you!!! Don't you EVER change! Keep that rebel spirit STRONG!!! And please, please keep on making these videos! You... Sir... Are a breath of fresh air!!! And quite frankly... We need MORE like you! Salty Mike is another one that I watch regularly... But yeah! He's a funny one! Sometimes he's hyper critical and on point... Just like yourself! But other times...??? Anyway, not sure 100% what's going down, but I hope you two are still on Good Terms! We NEED to keep CIG accountable and under the microscope! Because there are FAR too many dumb and mindless fanboys and sheep running around! Who have simply lost the art of critical thinking! Keep going Bro! You may have your detractors! But trust me!!! You STILL have plenty of support! And I'll be damned if I am going to join that Borg Collective!!!

I think its abundantly clear that the money allocation from backers has been inappropriately managed.

im waiting for them (cig) to fire the racetrack devs and hire server devs, law & order system devs, sandworm devs...something that actually matters, who gaf about racetracks, the community racers can build those!

Oh dear... CIG's management has REAL ISSUES... like we already knew this... Who remembers (Sandi's favourite) Forrest Stephan?

Once again keep saying FIRING, when a company relocates positions and said employees can't or do not want to relocate. That is called a voluntary Lay-off and NOT FIRING. We also know that Todd Papy was having some serious family issues which prevented him from relocating for his position. So, at no time for these positions were FIRED or Lay-ed off due to financial issue.....So try again I guess

Didn't you say you quit star citizen 8 months ago m

C IG has been called a toxic work environment for over a decade. This isnt anything new.