Telefrog
12-10-2009, 03:37 PM
This sucks. Boo hiss (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=26467&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+%28Gamasutra+Ne ws%29&utm_content=FaceBook)!
Rock Band publisher MTV Games confirmed to Gamasutra that Harmonix laid off 39 workers, or 13 percent of total staff on Thursday, a move "unrelated" to any supposed lagging sales of the studio's product line, a rep for the company said.
The rep for Harmonix and its owner MTV Games said that Harmonix's most recent release, The Beatles: Rock Band in particular is doing just fine at retail, with sales of "over 1 million units worldwide to date."
The rep said, "We can confirm that 39 positions were eliminated today at Harmonix as part of re-structuring to better align our staffing to best suit our product development plans and schedules moving forward."
But the rep flatly denied that sales performance was a factor behind today's move. "This was a process and business decision unrelated to the performance of any MTV Games/Harmonix product," he said. "MTV Games and Harmonix are very pleased with the sales of our Rock Band titles and we expect to continue to see strong sales throughout the holidays across all of our titles."
He continued, "Additionally, those 39 affected (which roughly represented about 13 percent of the staff) were primarily from the QA dept. Harmonix is making a structural and strategic change in how it handles QA."
Rock Band publisher MTV Games confirmed to Gamasutra that Harmonix laid off 39 workers, or 13 percent of total staff on Thursday, a move "unrelated" to any supposed lagging sales of the studio's product line, a rep for the company said.
The rep for Harmonix and its owner MTV Games said that Harmonix's most recent release, The Beatles: Rock Band in particular is doing just fine at retail, with sales of "over 1 million units worldwide to date."
The rep said, "We can confirm that 39 positions were eliminated today at Harmonix as part of re-structuring to better align our staffing to best suit our product development plans and schedules moving forward."
But the rep flatly denied that sales performance was a factor behind today's move. "This was a process and business decision unrelated to the performance of any MTV Games/Harmonix product," he said. "MTV Games and Harmonix are very pleased with the sales of our Rock Band titles and we expect to continue to see strong sales throughout the holidays across all of our titles."
He continued, "Additionally, those 39 affected (which roughly represented about 13 percent of the staff) were primarily from the QA dept. Harmonix is making a structural and strategic change in how it handles QA."