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As part of a "restructuring" move, Sega West has laid off 73 employees from two studios. An unfortunate side effect from this restructuring is the fact that 36 employees from the company's San Francisco studio, and 37 from London are now without jobs.
As noted by IndustryGamers, this is a reduction in workforce of 15% in North America and 10% in Europe for the company.
As part of Sega's new push towards digital releases, the company expects there to be announcements of new digital IP's within the next few months.
As noted by IndustryGamers, this is a reduction in workforce of 15% in North America and 10% in Europe for the company.
"We've been going through the planning process the past 6 months, taking a look at the future of the market and where we think our investments need to be. It's no surprise that the share of digital is growing as an overall part of the video game business, so we decided we have to invest more in that specific area," Hayes explained.
"And notably, we had to get our business groups appropriately sorted to provide the right focus. Traditionally, Sega of America and Sega Europe had been running a dual company where both would look at traditional goods and both would look at the digital side. What we decided to do is to make San Francisco the kind of hub for our digital efforts, and therefore make London the hub for the traditional packaged goods part. I would stress, however, that this is very much administrative reorganization, because clearly we want to be very successful with digital globally. Likewise, we want to continue to be successful with traditional goods. So the reorganization allows us to be much more efficient in terms of our costs, but probably more importantly in the way that we can look at the future business."
"And notably, we had to get our business groups appropriately sorted to provide the right focus. Traditionally, Sega of America and Sega Europe had been running a dual company where both would look at traditional goods and both would look at the digital side. What we decided to do is to make San Francisco the kind of hub for our digital efforts, and therefore make London the hub for the traditional packaged goods part. I would stress, however, that this is very much administrative reorganization, because clearly we want to be very successful with digital globally. Likewise, we want to continue to be successful with traditional goods. So the reorganization allows us to be much more efficient in terms of our costs, but probably more importantly in the way that we can look at the future business."
As part of Sega's new push towards digital releases, the company expects there to be announcements of new digital IP's within the next few months.