Well, if you didn’t know already you’ll know after reading this or this – Rare announced last month that it would be doing some ‘restructuring’, which is a friendly term for sacking a bunch of people. The whole process has been farcical at best, and has demoralised everyone thoroughly, but the powers that be have now let some people go. Thankfully I’m not one of them (which is fortunate since my redundancy payout would be pennies, and the Midlands isn’t exactly bursting with game development studios that would welcome me with open arms), but it’s been difficult seeing some of the people I work with depart, especially those that weren’t planning on walking out anyway. I hope they land on their feet, and something better finds them.
So there you go, a brief ‘behind the scenes’ glimpse at the sham of a mockery of a sham that is the games industry.
Hey, it’s sadly not just the games industry. We let 10% of our workforce go (~500 people worldwide) back at the end of January in a similar “restructuring” exercise, including about 10 people from my office, two who I’ve worked with directly. It was pretty horrible for us as well, and had similar effects; I’m sorry you’ve been through it too.
Hopefully the demoralisation will pass (think it took a couple of weeks for me), and hopefully your new project will eventually give you something to take your mind off things and sink your teeth into.