Breaking News: Sony Online Entertainment lays off 41 full-time workers

by Seraphina Brennan Jul 17th 2009 at 3:00PM

In a statement to Massively today, Sony Online Entertainment has confirmed that they are laying off 41 full-time workers, equaling 5% of their full-time workforce.

The company's statement provided a wish to increase operational efficiency and reduce costs as the main motivator behind this sudden and unexpected set of layoffs. The positions of those affected by the layoff is currently unknown.

SOE will not be providing any interviews or further comment on the matter. Our best and warmest wishes go out to those who have been affected by the layoffs and their families.

SOE's full statement to Massively can be found after the jump.

"In a move to increase operational efficiency and reduce costs, Sony Online Entertainment has eliminated 5% of its full-time workforce, equaling 41 people. SOE looks forward to continuing its leadership role in the online games industry as it celebrates the highly successful launch of Free Realms, the 10-year commemoration of its ground-breaking EverQuest franchise, and the continued performance of the company's other games."

Tags: breaking, economy, everquest, free-realms, jobs, layoffs, soe, sony-online-entertainment

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Jonephes said on 3:13PM 7-17-2009

There goes the SWG Devs :(

RJO said on 3:23PM 7-17-2009

Any ideas on the titles impacted yet?

Leshrac said on 3:20PM 7-17-2009

Is Smedley taking a pay cut? No? Didn't think so - chop those jobs Smed.

Parker R. said on 3:25PM 7-17-2009

not cool, but then again, it wasnt cool what they did to Star Wars Galaxies

Celestian said on 3:27PM 7-17-2009

Unexpected? Everyone is laying off these days in the US. Read the news much?

hmm said on 3:47PM 7-17-2009

So I guess Free Realms isn't quite the savior the marketing types would have you believe.

Interesting.

starzzareblind said on 3:51PM 7-17-2009

That sucks, I have a feeling there will be some big SWG and/or Vanguard news coming out soon. :\

Mr Angry said on 3:55PM 7-17-2009

It's Vanguard.

Given the lack of visibility at the Fan Fest, the timing is perfect to withdraw this IP, delayed content, lack of visibility to future plans, looks like they pressed the button finally.

Mr Angry said on 3:54PM 7-17-2009

Hmmm I know a few Sony folk post here, how about giving us some insight as to how John Smedley who has steered their ship in the wrong direction for upwards of the last 5-6 years is unaffected by a desire to increase efficiency?

Satn said on 4:03PM 7-17-2009

Have you forgotten that blame travels down?

Failing companies are the fault of bottom level employees, not idiotic CEOs and managers.

Vulturion said on 4:01PM 7-17-2009

Hope all those affected land on their feet.

On a selfish note: I hope this doesn't affect Frre Realms or The Old Republic - I cannot see it doing so though, because if any development staff were lost there's a whole catalogue of older games with performance issues to take the flak ahead of them.

MCRaider said on 4:25PM 7-17-2009

Do you mean SWG or The Old Republic?

If it is TOR then the game is being made by BioWare which EA bought not SOE.

Vulturion said on 7:21PM 7-17-2009

Whoops - completely muddled my companies there!

Well in that case I don't have any vested interests beyond Free Realms, so half the danger.

Mr Angry said on 7:39PM 7-17-2009

Fear not, here is just one shot of awesomeness to put your mind at rest!

http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/video-documentary-3#comment-54393

Pingles said on 4:02PM 7-17-2009

Has Matrix Online already closed its doors? Could this be part of that?

kaddokkodo said on 10:30PM 7-17-2009

hah! No, it ain't because of MxO - MxO has been running on one full-time dev for more than a year. A few months before they decided to pull the plug, MxO was running with one dev who was splitting his time between MxO and other SOE games.

Vagabond said on 4:51PM 7-17-2009

As a Vanguard player the question comes to me: where to go now? I don't think that Wow or basically any other fantasy based mmo game is comparable to it..

Prolly it's the same for SWG, but I do not play that, so can't really tell what it is like..

DrMario said on 4:50PM 7-17-2009

Is anyone still playing Vanguard? how's that game doing?

Vagabond said on 4:55PM 7-17-2009

I do. I wouldn't say it is the most populated games ever, but it certainly has some noticeable population. Still, the recent comments from developers shown little love for this game from SOE..