Report: PlayStation's Firesprite Has Been Losing Talent Amidst Accusations of a Toxic Culture - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2024 / 4,177 Views
First-party PlayStation studio Firesprite, along with other studios at Sony Interactive Entertainment, were hit with layoffs this week as the company announced it is laying off eight percent of its staff or about 900 employees.
A new report from Eurogamer, who has spoken with staff, has been told Firesprite "has recently suffered high profile exits amid accusations of a toxic workplace culture."
Firesprite was acquired by PlayStation in 2021 and released the PlayStation VR2 launch title Horizon Call of the Mountain in February 2023.
Staff stated the studio dealt with crunch to ensure Horizon Call of the Mountain was ready in time and there have been changes in senior leadership. This has led to discontent within the studio, with one source describing it as "death by a thousand cuts."
Multiple sources have stated that two senior leaders at support studio XDev, that was brought in to help Firesprite, have been accused of sexual discrimination and ageism. An internal investigation by Sony ended up dismissing the claims calling it a "misunderstanding."
Another report this week claims PlayStation has cancelled a live service Twisted Metal game that was in development at Firesprite. One source says the Twisted Metal game was in early development and had yet to be greenlit.
The sources said an "alarming" amount of staff left the company in recent months following a retention bonus payout in October that was designed to award those who remained at the developer after the Sony acquisition for a certain period of time.
All but one of the Firesprite founders have left the company in the last year as one source said "the last of what made Firesprite a good place to work went with them." Sources remain unclear as to why the founders have left.
New leadership was brought in from Sony support developer XDev. One source said "It seems leadership doesn't need to be earned. And trust is gone." Another source described it as "classic nepotism," while another person described the new leadership as an "inadequate toxic mess," "tyrants," and "bullies" who treat people "like it's a factory."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Every time a big company buys a small company, there are going to be changes in team culture. that doesn't necessarily make it toxic, it's just an unfortunate result of any purchased company. Be happy it wasn't a private equity that bought you, half the staff would be fired, the building would be sold and than rented to line the equities pocket.
Sounds like the former owners/leaders left and then Sony bought in XDev people to sure things up (probably thought as they worked with them before on previous games it makes sense) but as the owners left, others left. Many might have been waiting for that retention payday only, considering their new game was out anyway. Sony might have wanted those owners to stay but the owners didn't so things changed. Happens. This isn't to say other issue aren't occurring of course.
There were rumors last year that Firesprite had lost over 100 developers since the acquisition for a variety of reasons such as Sony policies affecting multiple departments leading to the founders jumping ship and it's continued to crumble ever since with poor studio leadership. But the rumors were cast off as BS. Although what is new is the XDev leadership being accused of sexual discrimination and ageism.
If Firesprite had lost that many developers last year, how many got laid off this week???? And how does this affect Fabrik Games? Which were Firesprite's dedicated support studio.
Doesn't sound like there's any truth to them losing 100 employees when the sources that talked to eurogamer give numbers indicating that the studio is larger now than it was when they were bought by sony.
There is some truth because the rumors popped up in October and there’s this part in the report
“Ahead of these layoffs, sources say an "alarming" number of employees had left the studio in recent months following a retention bonus payout in October, designed to reward staff for remaining on at the developer after the Sony acquisition for a further period of time”
Doesn't line up at all with the rumors if they focusing on HR being unable to cope with 300+ employess which is more than they had before. an extra chunk of staff only staying until they could get a recent bonus payment is itself a totally different picture. overall ther's also a lot of self-contradiction in among the anonymous sourse talking to eurogamer. that could point to employess simply being disgruntled that they expected by new leadership to clean up their own act. which happens a lot when you read between the liens with glassdoor stuff.
Yeah there’s way too many conflicting points in the report lol. It just sucks working in the game industry as a whole right now. Probably safer to assume no one is having a good time in one way or another.
Sony wanted to turn this studio in it's next Guerilla games tier studio, I guess that's not happening. If these rumours are true this studio is basically dead from the inside out.
As they say even in my workplace. It is not the people we help but the staff that causes people to leave.
What a huge shame,
Just after cookin that good vr2 game.
I guess the rumors that came up last year ended up being true.
At least its a different news story than layoffs and Switch 2 rumors.
