The progress of the French study has been criticized by local trade unions.
The French studio Don’t Nod, which several years ago managed to expand its activities to Montreal, Canada, probably does not need any special introduction. The authors of games such as Remember Me, Vampire or the first two parts of Life is Strange quickly gained popularity and today, in addition to being developers, they are also publishers. The company had ambitious plans and was preparing a number of projects, but the situation had to change after a significant setback in the first half of this year. And now the company is considering further steps.
The unpleasant situation was reported by Game Developer magazine, citing the financial results of the Don’t Nod studio published on Wednesday. From these we can learn that sales fell by 11% to 14.6 million euros compared to the same period last year. But things are much worse with the overall economic results, because last year Don’t Nod had a loss of less than a million euros for the first half of the year, but this year it is already a huge 42 million.
The financial failures of Jusant and Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden are largely to blame, neither of which the studio estimates can cover development costs with sales revenue, let alone turn a profit. Previously, the company reported that it had to suspend the development of two more projects precisely due to the failure of these two titles. Only Lost Records: Bloom & Rage and projects codenamed P10 and P14 continue to develop.
But even this did not solve the problems, and now Don’t Nod is planning a large-scale restructuring of the company to better meet market expectations, streamline the number of simultaneously developed games and, of course, make a profit. financial stability. However, it plans to lay off 69 employees, who make up almost a third of the Paris headquarters.
Shortly after the announcement, French gaming union STJV responded to the restructuring proposal, condemning the plan and saying the company’s failures could not be blamed on its employees. “This announcement is the result of a series of disastrous decisions,” this is written, for example, in a statement. They called on the Don’t Nod developers to mobilize and save their jobs.
Source : Zing
