Leaks indicate that Sony will layoff more employees from Insomniac Studios and other studios, according to reports
Even with the huge success of Spider-Man 2, Insomniac Games’ 2023 has undoubtedly been hurt by an alarming security breach and could see layoffs happening within months of this happening.
Rhysida leaked more than 1.7 terabytes of information onto the Internet by hacker group Rhysida, most notably regarding Insomniac’s future plans for Wolverine titles and Insomniac’s Spider-Man universe.
Concerns are swirling that, despite developers’ success, they could face layoffs as they pursue Wolverine development as well as multiple Spider-Man projects and more.
Kotaku first published information regarding Sony’s intentions to reduce headcount at Insomniac by 50-75 employees through an internal presentation last November, according to which 50-75 staff could potentially be let go from Insomniac.
Ted Price, founder and CEO of Insomniac Games, created this PowerPoint slide demonstrating that Insomniac could consider reallocating members assigned to Ratchet & Clank and new IP projects towards developing Wolverine and Spider-Man 3, replacing underperforming staff members by reallocating.
Price explained this decision with staff working on non-Marvel IP projects being veterans at the studio; therefore any layoffs in general could create discontent among staffers or result in individuals leaving on their own terms. He went further by noting how further layoffs might lead to disgruntlement within employees who decide they no longer wish to remain with Marvel IP projects and could cause people to leave on their terms.
Notable this year was Insomniac’s decision to cut its workforce already this year; their projected headcount by the end of 2023 had been expected at 500 full-time employees with Sony emailing them that its maximum allocation to them had been reduced to 470 employees.
An accompanying slide details how various methods were available to the studio to reduce its total workforce, such as layoffs and not filling roles previously held, performance improvement plans and placing employees with final results indicating whether or not they remained with the company or whether or not they needed to be terminated.
Though budgets for certain titles like Spider-Man 2 may have skyrocketed – reported costs have estimated it at an astronomical $315 million – there’s little doubting Insomniac Games’ success as 5 million copies sold during 11 days on sale!
Leaked documents outline that Sony needs 7.2 million copies sold before reaching breakeven; which should prove achievable, making this another triumph for them and Sony.
With Sony having made their announcement public, it remains to be seen if Insomniac Studios still needs to reduce staff given their current project pipeline.
