Virtuos, the studio best known for supporting large titles from third-party AAA development teams, has reportedly suffered mass layoffs. According to Gauthier 'Gautoz' Andres from the website Origami, roughly 7% of Virtuos is being laid off. This equates to about 300 employees.
Virtuos is a co-development studio that employs roughly 4,200 people. The bulk of today's layoffs are reportedly coming out of their locations in China and France.
According to a translation of Andres' remarks, put forth by Videogamer.com, a big reason behind the layoffs comes down to the "level of quality put into The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered." Virtuos basically put more effort into the remaster than what they were getting paid for. Andres says that Virtuos made a final product that did not match the payment amounts they previously agreed on with Bethesda.
Virtuos is said to have made significant efforts on Oblivion with a policy of over-quality relative to the budget and a contract without royalties (without bonuses indexed to the game’s success). The result: teams put to the test for a purely showcase game, doomed to see its profitability questioned.
