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Recent Layoffs at BHVR
This topic might not be allowed for multiple reasons, but I’m willing to take a hit.
Basically, while I cannot confirm the exact amount, a rumoured 95 BHVR employees were laid off this morning.
Can now confirm it's indeed 95 employees, as per this announcement:
I’ve already seen multiple now ex-BHVR employees confirm that they were laid off.
I don’t know of any major ‘faces’ as of writing but that may change as more news develops, as they say. Regardless, QA or Community, such layoffs are outrageous.
Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed.
Comments
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Couple of things.
- The entire industry has been having layoffs, usually of 10-20% of the company
- BHVR has, as of 2022, 1300+ employees.
- 95 would be around 7%, and likely they have way more than 1300 now.
This is likely the restructuring of a team, or initiative within the company that resulted in some people not having jobs. For example, maybe the teams around a cancelled internal project etc.
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1: just because it happens across the industry doesn’t make it right. Very much on the contrary.
2: sure, but these were rumoured to be people working on DbD specifically. I neglected to mention that. The potentially thousands of total BHVR employees isn’t all that relevant.
3: If the rumoured 95 is true, that’s still a substantial amount. I don’t think this can be dismissed with “it’s just 7%”
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BHVR has, as of 2022, 1300+ employees.
And how many of those actually worked on DbD? Judging by the quality of the game and the speed of implementing features, no more than 100, so what projects did the rest 1200 work on?
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- Companies do layoffs when they have to, nobody "wants" to do layoffs. That is a result of how things in the broader economy are doing.
- Perhaps, but again, it doesn't have to be a "GAME" maybe they were working on some planned feature for DBD that was going to be some completely rework of the game, or a tournament or any other potential cancelled projects.
- The 7% is with 2022 numbers, it is likely that the company has grown substantially in the past 2 years, they likely overhired, like everyone else, and need a way to deal with that.
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You'd be surprised, maybe 100 of those people are engineers sure, but you have QA, product management, UX, design, art, modeling, UI, marketing, music, sound, balance (i know lol), partner managers (they have a ton of 3rd party relationships to maintain), support staff, people taking care of the building they are in, IT, facilities, payments, billing, tech support, probably engineers for the support team to work on tools for them to actually support us, managers to manage all of these people and departments etc. All of that adds up fast.
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1: Microsoft's history this year alone disproves that. Besides, live-service games have proven to be the most lucrative business model in the industry. I somehow doubt that BHVR is currently struggling.
2: That's speculation. There's not a whole lot to discuss there.
3: Again, we don't know that. I have now however found this:
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Well that sucks.
I made a thread suggesting changes on the new survivor perks, with the only downside to those changes I bothered listing being 'the effort and resources required to make those changes.' Something tells me not to be too hopeful on those changes anymore… not that I was before, but still.—
That said, I'm curious what positions those layed off had.
If you check out behaviour's website, they're hiring quite a few artists and game designers as we type, including a position for an unannounced IP. That suggests to me that DBD is still doing well, making money, and they can justify pumping more resources into it (hope rekindled?).I am assuming the layoffs were related to other internal projects then, with a focus on roles that were not artists or programmers, since I would assume they would just attempt to reallocate those resources into the positions that are currently open into their website.
Maybe that means layoffs focused on roles like marketing, artists whose styles don't fit with DBD, underperformers? Maybe even supportive roles like customer service reps, IT, etc. since there's less people to support?
Either way, I think DBD is probably peachy, fine, and dandy.
—
That said, feel bad for those layed off - wish them well and good luck with their next employer.
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job postings are not always an indicator that a company is actually hiring. A lot of companies keep postings active to show investors they are still growing even if they have no intention to fill the advertised roles. Sometimes the role is already filled by someone in the company.
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Oof, posts like this cause me personal inner turmoil.
On the one hand, dishonest practices like this can exist to appease stakeholders. While Behaviour Interactive is, I believe, a private company, that doesn't mean it is exempt from having strict contracts or expectations that result in divestitures (ranging from banks, to other companies, to select individuals). As such, there can be a feeling of need to create the picture of growth even when stagnation or decline occurs to maintain those relationships and resume regular operating activities, ultimately saving peoples jobs. So these types of dishonest practices can be done even with good intentions by well meaning people, and are not restricted unscrupulous leaders and management.
On the other hand, I dislike these types of dishonest practices in general, regardless of the reason. I also tend to like Behaviour as a company, despite my issues with some of their decisions (especially related to this game). So a large part of me does not want to believe this is the case where Behaviour is a lying, manipulating, typical, money-grubbing, value-spoofing, dishonest, snake-in-the-grass company.
Sooo yeah, you're right, it's possible.
But given the lack of evidence for or against this being the case, I'm going to opt not to believe that is what they are doing; however, I did leave some colorful adjectives in the previous paragraph to passive aggressively insult them in the event that I'm wrong. Even if done for good intentions.0 -
You really don’t have any room to talk about this topic honestly. You have no idea why they were laid off and have no clue if it’s outrageous.
ESPECIALLY with how bad inflation and the economy has been getting sometimes costs have to be cut. It’s unfortunate but the company is running a business NOT a charity case. It’s definitely unfortunate for people to lose their jobs but let’s not act like they got let go for zero reason when we have no clue why. Nor do we have any right to know.
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Not every layoff is because John CEO wants to buy a 2nd yacht. Things happen, teams underperform, priorities change… it's all a necessary part of business, and it's not really fair to criticize this kind of thing just as a matter of course.
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Considering that the devs themselves are voicing outrage, I think I am very well in my right to be outraged as well.
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Disappointing but also inevitable.
Nothing's certain but death and taxes after all. And those taxes come in many forms
Post edited by HaunterofShadows on1 -
BHVR is a small indie company managing one of the biggest licensing nightmares in the industry alongside trying to grow as a name and brand. It's a shame, but sometimes this is going to happen. I don't think this was corporate greed, unlike Microsoft or Konami and whatnot.
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They may have the right, YOU do not. Not unless you know the reason.
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Whats even the point of this thread? You sound immature and naive, layoff happens, a company is a company at the end of the day.
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The dev I cited quite literally states that he wants us to state our opinions and frustrations. That is what I am doing.
From what I can tell, this took the dev team by surprise as well, so they can't have known the reasons either.
Primarily sharing news, as I always do on here. I felt inclined to give my opinion as well, whether you engage with that is up to you. I don't think I sounded particularly immature either. Was me making this thread impulsive? Maybe. I would disagree, but that's for you to decide.
"Naive"? If anything, I'd call it cynical. I will admit I am assuming this was another entry in this year's gaming CEOs laying off hundreds upon hundreds of employees. I have no reason not to assume so, frankly. The announcement reeks of corpo-speak, the devs team was taken by surprise as well. Not to mention this isn't even the first round of layoffs within BHVR this year.
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I don't understand how BHVR said that this doesn't affect the development of Dead By Daylight, but a lot of DBD devs on X are saying they've been laid off. Mainly community devs but i've also seen one game designer be laid off.
https://x.com/DEATHDORKS/status/1798053537768992786
"So, expect things to slow down. It's... going to be hard to try to maintain the same amount of work we were doing before this happened."This is from the community manager we've seen in the past few livestreams. (Not been laid off)
I'm a little concerned for the future of the game. Which is a shame because the anniversary stream made me feel the opposite.5 -
We don't have the full picture as to why; just the statement and a couple of Twitter comments.
Maybe there is some good reason for this, or maybe this was a flawed decision, we do not know.
Until there's more clarity I'm quite happy to consider this standard business news for now. I do hope the statement is correct in BHVR helping those made redundant find employment, since lay-offs are a horrid thing to have done - be they necessary or not.
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….
Why am I seeing people here getting angry at other that are disappointed by mass layoffs in the industry??
these are disappointing news, even if there are economic reasons for the layoffs. BHVR for me always felt like the exception in the video game industry because of how they treat their employees so I did have hopes this wouldn’t be news any time soon but I guess no one is completely surprised it turned out to be..
wishing all those affected good luck on their futures and I do hope they get more insights why they were laid off8 -
My guess is that they had people who could fill more than one role and decided to downsize the people who were mostly specialized on one aspect. I couldnt say that this was a good or bad choice but I know that its the reason a lot of the time when a company is downsizing. Since none of us gamers are behind the walls its hard to say this was a bad call or why it happened but if I was to guess and this is merely what ive seen elsewhere its that its sometimes hard to get a full on team to focus on a direction when you have so many people going in different ways and they perhaps are trying to maybe speed up the pipeline and increase productivity by having fewer inbetween steps. Again tho this is merely my speculation I do not work for BHVR but its sorta what ive seen happen at other companies in the last few years so I merely guessing based on that detail. Hopefully everyone who was laid off had ample time to set up a new job and it wasn't just dropped on them in a blink of an eye.
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Wouldn't surprise me if this were Meet Your Maker related? Bhvr has over 1000 employees and only 1 successful game but there's no way they all work on dbd
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BHVR is probably bloated with people still. 1300+ employees is insane. Imagine the turnover they need to pay that many wages.
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Please remember that many of us have lost colleagues we care about today, people we've worked with, admire and respect. So please lets keep this discussion civil.
I'm not going to discuss the situation, but can assure all of you - DbD is not going anywhere, this does not affect our production pipeline etc.
Thank you to those who have expressed support today <3
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They still have over 1000 employees. What are all those people doing then?
1300+ is insane. A company like naughty dog who makes TLOU, Uncharted has 400 or so.
Santa monica ( god of war, some other product we dont know about yet ) 250 or so.
The ENTIRETY of plastation studios have 4000 employees. Thats over 20 developers, and BHVR has close to half that just for DBD and a few smaller things.
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You have to wonder at the financial state of BHVR considering the shiny object syndrome leadership has with these other projects (Deathgarden, Meet Your Maker, Islands of Insight) and every other chapter being licensed for years now.
DbD players have come to accept it, but DbD is wildly buggy for a mature game, and you don't really notice how shaky the foundation is until you play another live service game and realize it's not normal for 20 things to be broken for months at a time. If DbD starts to bleed players, BHVR is cooked, and they're clearly taking it for granted considering how buggy the game still is in 2024.
I completely understand the frustration from employees. I would be pissed off if resources were being diverted to bizarre DOA projects and layoffs were happening because the bizarre project flopped.
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We love ❤️ you Mandy! And the team. Thank you for the comment and we are here for you in spirit! Wish we could help 😔
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thank you <3
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I had seen this earlier and was disappointed but not particularly worried or concerned about it
However, a lot of people I respect from the community are super irked about it and stating that they may just plain quit the game over this, which makes me a lot more concerned over the whys than I had been previously. I don't know if people have more info than I do (which granted, I haven't exactly looked into this since it just happened today and all I've seen was the initial tweet) but that has concerned me far more than the news itself…
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People do realise that BHVR is a business right?
They’re not laying people off because they’re evil and don’t care, they’re laying people off because either the roles have become redundant or it’s not economically feasible to keep them on.
Losing a job sucks, especially one you like, so my sympathies go out to those affected.But all the outrage over this is nonsensical.
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I agree. Don't get me wrong it sucks when someone loses thier job and Im wishing them the best and hope they find a new job fast. That said this happens every single day all the round the world. Every business in the world experience layoffs just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Doesn't make the company the devil tho, it's called business. Once again my heart goes out to those who lost thier jobs but being outrage and call the company evil isn't going to get those ppl thier jobs back. Best thing to do imo is send your support to those who lost their jobs and wish them the best on find something new.
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I’ve always thought this, too!
My sister got me in to DBD back in 2019. I remember when I first started playing SWF with her I assumed the game was fairly new and in development stages. When she told me (at that time) the game was three years old I couldn’t believe it!
As great as the game looks and how much new content we get, it’s pretty crazy that all these years later there are so many goofy bugs that are just “part of DBD”. When you actually look at it diplomatically, it’s pretty crazy that a game in its eighth year is as buggy as it is! As you said, when you take away all the chapters, skins, content etc, the foundations of the game are still pretty rocky.0 -
While im not worried about DBD, what about the other projects?
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small? we still pretending that?
also, I will never, ever, take the company side on big layoffs. neither should anyone else.
won´t take a neutral stance either. if the company wants any sympathy, they must come clean on their reasons.
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1,300 employees work at BHVR as of 2022, Microsoft just laid off 1,900 employees this year and ten times as many in January last year. We can split hairs over this as much as you want, I'm only calling one of them a large company. BHVR might have grown a bit since then, I doubt it's by a magnitude of 10.
I don't tend to take a Company's side on layoffs either, as someone's livelihood is always going to be at major risk, but to pretend that layoffs don't happen sometimes is fools folley. Given some of these people were hired halfway through 2020, it is possible hiring them was something of a risk in of itself given the global recession. It really does suck that these people lost their jobs, especially given the passion I've seen in most of their leaving comments, but I doubt there was an alternative where BHVR could just say 'nah' and keep them all.
Post edited by ArkInk on0 -
I panicked for a second seeing you link to Dork. I'm glad she's staying with us, she must be protected at all costs.
This is very sad news, and I'm sorry to all the devs who have been told they no longer have a place on the team. I appreciate all the love and hardwork they've put into DBD for our enjoyment. They've helped build the game to what it is today and the powers that be should be thanking them, not letting them go.
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This is a good time to have a new person in charge of Japanese information dissemination and localization. There are many typographical errors that have yet to be fixed, the addition of inflammatory phrases when sending out patch notes, etc., that are meant to upset people (mainly the killer players), and a series of translations that differ from the English original, such as the recent toolbox buffing reasons. I am fed up and I have been playing the English version of the game for about 5 years now.
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probably compared to larger studios, yeah
why are people so quick to be anti company? it's not like these actions are taken out the blue or without good reason
sometimes it's more complex than we think or can see. The small company I work for recently had to let some ppl go; turned out the reason was because there was a covenant in our loan agreement that required our debt service ratio to be under X amount at specified dates. If we failed to be under then it would have resulted in substantial payments being due to the lender which would have had more of a negative impact on the company than the few layoffs that occurred in some of our stores. Very negative feedback from our local managers and privately they suggested it was typical corporate greed (understandable) but it was more complex than simply saving money where possible
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People have no idea how much money goes into managing a business, especially one that hosts a live service game with a lot of players. They also don't take into consideration the consequence of not doing layoffs like this and how it could be much worse in the long run. I highly doubt this is something they wanted to do. Its more reasonable to assume its something they needed to do rather than wanted to. I think its more wrong to assume companies should be obligated to employee someone forever than it is to let them go. A job is no more an entitlement than the existence of the company offering it.
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No one even said they believe BHVR wanted to do the layoffs… I think everyone is very much aware of that and that it’s necessary. But I highly doubt doing unannounced mass layoffs that the employees take by surprise is the way to go. That sounds more like mismanagement and shouldn’t be something normal…
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Shouldn't impact those at all. It's only marketing people who got fired.
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Unfortunately this kind of thing happens often, and has been happening all across the industry.
The company I work for did the same thing a few months back, and it was scary cause they announced it at 10am in the morning and said "we'll let those of you who are affected know via private e-mail by 5pm today".
We all sat trying to do a day's work, not sure if we still had a job at the end of the day... Thankfully I'm in the UK, so at least in my case it would have a notice to serve... but our colleagues in the US could literally lose their job on the spot...
Although it's not surprising to hear this happen to BHVR, and being a professional in the industry you understand why it happens, it is a horrible experience all round. Everyone feels crap about it, whether its the shame and heartbreak for lower level manager/team leader who has to tell the employee (sometimes their friends), the stress and worry for the people who lose their jobs, or the guilt and loss for the people who keep their jobs. Just a sad experience for everyone.
Much love to the people of BHVR and to anyone who has had to move on, hope you're all doing OK 🧡
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No one is saying any of that. Ill bet you wouldn't feel good if you were let go from your job and a bunch of people online were brushing it off, especially the very people you worked your behind off to please every day. It's called having empathy. Mandy has confirmed she is still employed, thankfully, but what about Peanits or Rizzo? We have no idea if they've come out unscathed and as valued members of the community I doubt they'd like to see "oh well, it happens, you're not entitled to your job" remarks. They'd understand more than any of us exactly why this has happened, they don't need it repeated ad nauseam.
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I can confirm Peanits is “safe”, as he puts it himself.
Rizzo is a moderator. I believe they are volunteers, and as such wouldn’t have been at risk in the same way other people are. Might be wrong there, though.
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Cheers for that. I wasn't 100% sure on the mods either. Glad Peanits is safe.
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People is overeacting and every single industry make this things, politics, money and other stuff, i dont understand why everyone is crying about it, its sad and obviously collegues suffer for that and every people need to be respect, but this is how industries works. People need find to do and stop cry for this. Otz is considering leave the fog whispers because of this, we are just people consuming the game and we dont live on a mistic space where everything is lovely and beautiful and BHVR loves all of us. Again, every industry and corporation make this everywhere, everytime. If people will boycott every company made that, people will be live in the vaccum
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For those bringing up questions about how many employees work on DbD, as of November they said it was 300:
Source:
On what games they make, BHVR seems to work on lots of projects that are not 'theirs'. On their website they list having worked on games such as Mortal Kombat, multiple Gear Games, Rainbow Six: Extraction, Dirt, Farcry 5, etc.
Source:
On the issue, layoffs suck. Companies hire employees to make good products (e.g. make money), they let employees go when they don't think they are necessary to the direction the company is going (e.g. they lose money). Sometimes they make the right call, sometimes they screw it up. I'm not in any position to speculate on that part of it.
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Otz has said a few of his friends lost their jobs, which is why he is upset. I think it's perfectly normal to feel upset on behalf of your friends.
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"compared to a helicarrier, a bus is a small vehicle"… would you look at a bus on the street and call it small now? c'mon.
because companies as a group proved time and time again to not care for any individual or even people. it's all about profit and cutting costs.
and your example didn't really help. because you are making it seem like firing people was the only avaiable option when I doubt that to be true.
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are small and large the only sizes avaiable?
not pretending layoffs don't happen. but you won't catch me going " I don't think this was corporate greed" until I know EVERYTHING about it.
I would be very willing to bet there were alternatives. this is just the decision they took. for reasons yet unknown to me.
and the way it happened, as a surprise to everyone, leaves a terrible impression.
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