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As you may know, the merger between Vivendi and Activision two years back led to a series of convoluted events, which in turn led to the publishing rights for the Crash franchise to be passed on to Activision. Despite confirmation of this franchise not being thrown out like some others, Radical Entertainment, developers of Crash Bandicoot since Tag Team Racing, suffered massive layoffs that year (around 120 employees had to say their goodbyes to the team).
And now they've done it again. Earlier today, Activision released the following statement on the matter:
"Activision Publishing continually evaluates its resources to ensure that they are properly matched against its product slate and strategic goals. In 2010, the company's SKU count will be smaller than in 2009 driven in part, by a decrease in the number of music-based games we will be releasing.
As we discussed on our earnings conference call yesterday, we are directing our resources against the largest and most profitable business segments, and as part of this initiative, we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities. At the same time, we are increasing our digital/online capabilities as we expect that digital/online will continue to become a more meaningful part of our business model in the years ahead."
Radical has reportedly suffered another tremendous loss - roughly 90 more employees were laid off by Activision, which is more than half of the team. Other teams have been affected by this decision as well, with some of them apparently closing down because of it. Where does this leave our bandicoot friend? It's very hard to predict. Activision has expressed interest in the series before, and they did retain it even after other anticipated titles were canned, so it shouldn't come down to the worst. On the other hand, laying off over half of the development team is worrying to say the least.
The truly sad part of the story is that a big lot of talented people were sent home due to how business works. Those who were forced to walk away from Radical in 2008 found jobs at other teams, so anyone who's enjoyed their work will only want the same to happen again. The fans wish everyone at Radical the best of luck, both to the recently laid off employees and everyone who will be staying.
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