- Romero Games has announced that financing his next unexpected game was fired by his publisher
- Several employees have now visited social networks to say that they have been dismissed from Romero games due to the latest Microsoft cuts
- A former staff member says that the “whole studio” has been dismissed
Romero Games has announced that funding for his next game has been withdrawn because several staff members say that the entire studio was affected by the latest Microsoft cuts.
In an article on social networks, the co-founder of Romero Games, Brenda Romero, shared a declaration saying that the team had learned last night that its publisher had canceled the financing of its next project, “as well as several other unexpected projects in other studios”.
“It was a strategic decision taken at a high level within the publisher, well above our visibility or our control,” said Romero. “We deeply want there to have been something, anything, that we could have done to prevent this result.
“It is absolutely not a reflection of the work, the performance of our team or the quality of the project itself. We have crossed each step in time, each time, we have constantly received praise and easily passed all our internal doors.
“We are currently assessing the next steps and working quickly to support our team. Many of us have worked together for more than a decade, some for more than 20 years. It is an extremely difficult day, and we have been broken, it happened to that.”
Romero does not explicitly say that the loss of financing was due to Microsoft job cuts, but after the publication of the declaration, Christoph Redl, a former hard surface artist in the studio, said in an article on social networks that “due to recent Xbox layoffs, I lost my position at Romero Games” and is now looking for work.
Another former staff member also went to LinkedIn and said that “the whole studio was released because of Microsoft dismissals”.
During the editorial staff, more than a dozen employees in Romero Games publicly declared that they were looking for work due to layoffs (via IGN).
“Today, I discovered that our whole studio was released because of Microsoft layoffs,” said another former employee.
“A very sad day,” said another. “It breaks my heart to say that Romero Games was the victim of the 9,100 microsoft layoffs today. The best team I have ever worked with and my dream work disappeared like that. It was really a big project and it is difficult to treat that it is finished. It’s nothing less than tragic.”
Microsoft announced that it would make changes in its studios yesterday, which has so far led to massive job cuts that have seen at least 9,000 people affected.
Several games have also been canceled, in particular Perfect Dark,, Farceand an unexpected MMO of The elder scrolls online studio. Developer The initiative has also been closed.
