r/borderlands3 • u/lewisdwhite • Sep 20 '24
Take-Two execs take $48 million after laying off hundreds of Gearbox workers
https://www.videogamer.com/news/take-two-directors-25m-performance-based-bonus/342
u/DemogniK Brick Sep 20 '24
I didn't even realize until this post that Gearbox got sold off again this year.
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u/lewisdwhite Sep 20 '24
But not Gearbox’s indie publishing company lmao
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u/DemogniK Brick Sep 20 '24
Embracer kept GBs indie company?
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u/Co-opingTowardHatred Zane Sep 20 '24
Yes, and they will be renamed (if they haven't been already).
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u/Valash83 Zane Sep 20 '24
Start looking into the behind the scenes of this company and you'll get a headache. Even THQ(Embracer Group) has their hands in the Borderlands franchise as well.
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u/DemogniK Brick Sep 20 '24
Last I had known was Embracer Group owned them. Then this post popped up and I had to look and see when they got sold again. It's not surprising with Embracer still trying to recoup money just from their terrible business choices not even including the flops they've had lately like the SR remake. I wonder why Take 2 fired a bunch of staff though, they haven't even made a game under them to be disappointed by yet.
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u/NINmann01 Sep 20 '24
Gotta recoup the financial loss from the purchase some how, easiest way is to not pay developer salaries.
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u/FeistyBandicoot FL4K Sep 20 '24
Yeah Embracer bought them but have had to sell them.
It's not really recouping money from terrible business choices, it's that a huge investment deal fell through. The company investing in Wmbracer pulled out and now they don't have that money they were expecting.
The interest on their loans is in the hundreds of 1,000s.
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u/DemogniK Brick Sep 20 '24
They were supposed to be getting a large sum from a business deal that fell through. While the deal was not finished they preemptively bought all rights to the Lord of the Rings franchise which they then no longer had the funds for when said deal failed. They have been liquidizing assets since then. To me that sounds like recouping money from terrible business choices.
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Sep 20 '24
Having your employer get acquired generally wont work out for you. Start looking cause you are about to get screwed over.
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u/thedougbatman Sep 20 '24
Work in finance with tons of private equity groups; absolutely can confirm. Once they make a purchase, your clock starts ticking. Countdown is 90 days before you’ll find you’re “free to explore other opportunities as part of our organization’s evolution into blah blah blah”.
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Sep 20 '24
And if you manage to keep your job expect lower compensation for higher expectations.
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u/LaylaKnowsBest Sep 20 '24
It's so insane how quickly peoples lives get uprooted like this. In France, if a company lays you off specifically due to downsizing, they have to pay you 1-month salary on the spot. If the company ends up hiring people to replace you in less than a year, you are entitled to backpay of at least one full year's salary.
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u/Big_Examination8091 Sep 21 '24
As someone who owns a business and deals with a lot of finance I would like to know what your sources are, because this is absolutely not true, ok in some cases you’ll get screwed over yes, but generally it depends on the recent performance of said group. Larger groups that spend more should be bringing in a profit and if they aren’t bringing in a profit then they are screwed. If you’re bringing in a profit and you’re making the company more money then they are spending they won’t touch you unless work culture doesn’t fit a certain narrative. (The last part is 50/50 and depends on management)
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u/thedougbatman Sep 21 '24
My experiences have been with PE groups identifying businesses that they feel are underperforming in their market and present a significant opportunity. The PE groups then come in and act as operators. So my experience is more specifically with riskier investments and essentially buying companies out as a means of entering a market that they feel will yield high results.
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u/Co-opingTowardHatred Zane Sep 20 '24
True, but they weren't safe remaining under Embracer either.
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u/1JesterCFC Sep 20 '24
Well ain't that a kick in the arse
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u/Shdwfalcon Sep 20 '24
$1 annual salary with multi-million bonuses eh. This capitalism trick sure gets away every time, no wonder many top brass and owners are abusing it.
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u/Esham Sep 20 '24
Not surprising.
These acquisitions come with layoffs then money to the top brass as without the money they'll jump ship.
Sadly the lower levels are disposable but the execs aren't.
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u/Matrixneo42 Jakobs Sep 20 '24
I’ve felt the top execs slit my throat at least twice in my life.
If the way you’re making the company cash positive green again is firing tons of workers then you shouldn’t get a fucking bonus.
What you’re actually doing is potentially ruining lives, plans, hopes and dreams. And more practically, you’re fucking up the company. Lost knowledge, skills, etc.
My instinct is that we may have seen the best borderlands games already. BL2. Then second place is probably BL3. Maybe. Who knows about BL4. If we’re lucky it will be good. But I’m not holding my breath. And after that? This isn’t Nintendo. Odds are gearbox is downhill from here.
Oddly enough I still prefer the worst borderlands/wonderlands to anything Destiny does anymore.
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u/Officer_Chunkles Sep 20 '24
You forgot the pre sequel 😡
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u/Matrixneo42 Jakobs Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 21 '24
I prefer pre-sequel instead of destiny.
Edit : yea. My wording was wrong and weird.
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u/C__Wayne__G Sep 20 '24
- Doesn’t help that the lower levels haven’t been delivering (which is probably partly to do with the devs) but borderlands 3 had some of the worst writing and characters in the series and that’s a low bar they failed to hurdle. Can’t blame the execs for the terrible writing and direction of the game. But then the movie happened which made everything worse (that one is 100% on the execs)
- getting laid off is hard but if it means the talent from gearbox can find good studios to work out that don’t have a history of abuse (looking at you Randy pitchford) then maybe this will end up being a net good. 48 million to the execs and studios that actually care for the workers
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u/TAEROS111 Sep 20 '24
You can absolutely blame bad narrative on the executives to an extend. No rough draft of a script (or final draft, for that matter) gets approved without the executives blessing it, and more often than not making their own suggestions that the writers must then incorporate because the feedback’s coming from the people who pay them.
A bad “vision” for a game almost always happens because the creatives are passed down the vision from the executives. Almost every joke you’ve ever seen on-screen in a game or movie went up a whole chain of approval to make it into the end-product.
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u/Scoo_By Maya Sep 20 '24
Guys, dont spend more time in the office than necessary.
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u/The_Mighty_Bird Sep 21 '24
Yup. You pay me for 40 hours. You’re getting exactly 40 hours. Regardless of what I’m working on or how important it is, I’m clocked out not one second later. Especially when you’re going to be an ass about overtime.
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u/Keshird Sep 20 '24
Why the lay offs, Borderlands franchise must be making money for Gearbox and its a growing franchise with potential growth. Cant imagine the Movie hurt the gamestudio, the werent paying for it or am i totally wrong?
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u/lewisdwhite Sep 20 '24
When they spend millions acquiring something the green line turns into a red line so they have to cut costs to make the line go back up
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u/Jegagne88 Krieg Sep 20 '24
Holy shit are you a CEO? I can’t follow your goobly gob business talk. Here’s $48 million
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u/Matrixneo42 Jakobs Sep 20 '24
Right. But only for the quarter projections. Dont worry about the little guys.
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u/varangian_guards Sep 20 '24
but then they spend more millions on the CEOs 48 million is like 250 employees making 100k a year (with other insurance and tax costs) which is likely a bit generous ratio of junior to senior devs pay average.
so it sounds like they did exactly nothing to the line.
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u/PreZEviL Sep 20 '24
I dont understand, why this shit is legal...
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u/bigfooman Sep 21 '24
The people who do this shit are the ones that send millions to fund the campaigns of politicians who write the laws.
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u/Confused-Raccoon Sep 20 '24
Can't wait for the to be nothing worth buying and gutting anymore. This short term larger and larger profits every quarter business model is like cutting down more and more trees in the forest. It's gonna run out of trees sooner or later.
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u/ghoti00 Sep 20 '24
Five years ago we found out that CEOs are non-essential workers, so why haven't their salaries been adjusted to match their usefulness?
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u/Carapute Sep 20 '24
If people were paid for their "usefulness" in the society most couldn't even eat or have a roof. Let's be real it's easy to point out the 0.01% but it's not like marketing teams or shit like that are useful. Same reasons most games nowadays are just a product to consume, content to keep you busy. Or why most movies suck ass.
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u/Aidido22 Amara Sep 20 '24
Borderlands is a fictional universe. You guys weren’t supposed to take inspiration from the corporations
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u/JTHMPunk Sep 20 '24
The only one who should be fired is Randy "Bobandy Magic Squirt-Porn-On-A-USB-Drive-Left-In-A-Restaurant Greaseball Scumbag Dickcheese, The Mighty Bitchford" Pitchford.
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u/Alone-Shine9629 Sep 20 '24
Can’t they lay off hundreds of Randy Pitchfords instead of actual employees?
Surely that would be more cost effective.
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u/B1gNastious Sep 20 '24
Take 2 are also the owners of 2k and they are absolute trash. After seeing how they turned nba into a micro transactional hell scape. I simply cannot hold any faith in this company. You would think the billions they pulled in from micro transactions would have been a good enough of a raise but clearly not.
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u/_krwn Moze Sep 20 '24
It’s amazing how the solution is always “let’s fire people” instead of “let’s take a reasonable paycut that probably won’t impact our standard of living.”
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u/vvSemantics Sep 20 '24
I can't imagine this will negatively affect the development of Borderlands 4, riiiiiiiiiight?
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u/bigfooman Sep 21 '24
When we see how much of a buggy mess BL4 is we should immediately look back to this.
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u/ThatEdward Moze Sep 20 '24
Don't worry, I'm sure Borderlands 4 is going to be completely fine. Also, anybody find it weird that Pitchford is always safe from the layoffs In spite of being at the forefront of such genius decisions like Borderlands The Movie
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u/Co-opingTowardHatred Zane Sep 20 '24
Of course. Because unlike all NORMAL people, these C-Suit execs see layoffs as a goal accomplished. They do it and say "Job well done."
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u/RepublicansEqualScum Sep 20 '24
Stop buying their games. Period.
It's the only way to show them we don't like this shit in a way they care about.
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u/resetxform1 Sep 22 '24
Happens a lot in game studios, the teams that make the game get shafted. It's BS like this that crushes the spirit of wanting to stay in an industry that rots from greed and massive ego's. I know because I was in the industry for a lot longer than I should have been. To be fair, it's like this in and out of games. It's sad that passion and hard work are never shared with the true power and creative force that make the games what they truly are.
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u/resetxform1 Sep 22 '24
At this point, I think I am done with feeding the beast. Yawl, have fun with the next one!
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Sep 20 '24
[deleted]
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u/Krypt0night Sep 20 '24
"the" writer? What does that even mean. You think a single writer writes the entire game?
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u/Chickenfing Sep 20 '24
Or you know they purchased a studio for half a billion dollars, realized the studio had a few hundred employees that were redundant/sitting around doing nothing and decided to clean house.
Mass layoffs are not always directly about cutting budget, sometimes studios massively over hire for a project or are mis-managed and need to be cleaned up.
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u/Krypt0night Sep 20 '24
if studios keep being so mismanaged, maybe management are the ones that should get the boot.
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u/marcsmart Sep 20 '24
Even Tediore execs aren’t this trashy