‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ devs hit out at industry-wide lay offs

nme.com:

Larian Studios has hit out at a number of companies laying-off development staff to maximise profits for shareholders.2024 has started with a number of studios cutting huge swathes of employees.

Microsoft laid off 1,900 staff shortly after its acquisition of Activision Blizzard was approved, Riot Games laid off over 500 members of staff, and today (February 19) it was confirmed that Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM has cut a quarter of its staff.Elsewhere, the Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch claimed it wasn’t making a profit after another massive round of layoffs, while Embracer Group admitted that its “overruling principle is to always maximise shareholder value in any given situation” after cutting 1,400 jobs over the past 12 months.Last week, Baldur’s Gate 3 picked up a number of trophies at the DICE Awards including Outstanding Achievement In Story, RPG Of The Year, Outstanding Achievement In Game Direction, and Game of the Year.

Larian Studios used their various acceptance speeches to call out the growing trend of cutting developers before shareholder bonuses.“This is a really human industry, and we’re really bad sometimes at showing developers what they’re worth … it’s kinda the elephant in the room, especially surrounded by all this opulence,” said director of publishing Michael Douse [via PCGamer].“Many, many people were let go at the start of this year.