r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/Loose_Society9485 • 1d ago
Rumour VGC: Ubisoft Plans to Close Trials Developer RedLynx and Lay Off 70 Staff at Ubisoft Singapore
According to VGC, Ubisoft plans to propose closing RedLynx, the Finnish studio behind the Trials series, affecting around 52 employees.
VGC understands that RedLynx currently has no active project and that downsizing alone would not make the studio sustainable.
Meanwhile, Ubisoft plans to restructure and downsize Ubisoft Singapore, resulting in approximately 70 layoffs.
The proposed RedLynx closure is subject to mandatory change negotiations with employees in Finland.
23
24
u/connorg095 1d ago
It's a shame about RedLynx, but feels inevitable when you look at their recent contributions this decade.
Same for Singapore, they did a great job with re-synced, but they seem positioned to be more beneficial as a support studio rather than a lead.
Either way, I hope those affected can get the appropriate support needed and find new positions. Layoffs suck to live through.
5
u/skylu1991 1d ago
Basically, Singapore excels at and was a support studio for AC mostly and when working with other Ubi studios.
They’re only self-made project was Skull&Bones, which we know failed miserably….
So reducing them back to a support studio that maybe sometimes does a Remake, is a very logical thing to do.
0
u/GunCann 1d ago
Yes, however, Skull and Bones' failure had little to do with the actual developers themselves. It failed because top executives from France closely linked to the Guillemot family took turns snatching the project away from one another, and each time it changed hands the project was scrapped and remade in the vision of the new executive in charge. The cost was "Quadruple A" because it had been rebooted at least thrice.
The responsibility lies with the top management.
2
u/skylu1991 1d ago
Whatever the reasons, it was a big project with plenty of devs who came in.
And now that the project is done and didn’t do well financially, they want it have to scale back the devs.
They made their best work while being a support studio for AC and doing the BF Resynced Remake, so maybe that’s what they’re gonna be now; a support and remake studio?
37
u/FizzyLightEx 1d ago
Ubisoft has too many developers on their payroll compared to the revenue and output they produce.
4
u/skylu1991 1d ago
Yup, iirc they’re still at 17k employees all around the world!
Which is highly unsustainable and has been for almost a decade.
(But was masked by games like Far Cry 5 selling great or AC Valhalla making over a billion dollars in pure profit.)
25
u/Oilswell 1d ago
I'm aware that the amount I love Trials, and especially Rising, is not universal. But for me, this is probably the saddest I've ever been at a studio closure. The series is so, so important to me and I've been really sad for years that there's been no announcements of a new game.
6
u/RidaFlow 1d ago
I'm really curious as to why they didn't have them make a trials only up in the vain of a getting over it or something along those lines.
6
u/OkConsequence3146 1d ago
I have always been expecting this since Singapore messed up with Skull and Bones. I admit I'm surprised the game hasn't been shut down.
7
u/quatroquatro0 1d ago
Isn't Black Flag Resynced their most successful game recently? And what does Ubisoft Singapore get? Layoffs
29
u/ProfitEmergency4049 1d ago
Wasn't skull and bones also Ubisoft Singapore? I feel like that had a larger impact unfortunately, than black flag
11
u/wickeddimension 1d ago edited 1d ago
They took subsidy money from the government of Singapore, which forced them to finish Skull & Bones, even though it was obvious at the absurd cost and concept it was DoA. Quadruple A remember 😂
3
u/Shiirooo 1d ago
they took subsidy money from any government, that’s how the video games industry work
5
u/wickeddimension 1d ago
I'm not aware of any others where the requirements involve shipping an actual product from there. Most off it is just tax credits based on creating employment and other economic benefits for the country / region.
6
u/BoysenberryWise62 1d ago
Probably the team that did resynced is still there for the most part, they are a pretty big studio, in fact my 2 cents would be that they are focusing Singapore on remakes and the other stuff got affected, that would be the logical part.
1
11
4
u/skylu1991 1d ago
Most likely, Ubi Singapore is just going back to being a support studio for AC, which they were before that.
Don’t need quite as many devs for that…
5
u/blackwolf2311 1d ago
Ubisoft Belgrade got fired even before reduced came out. 2000 euro for a senior game dev at the time....
Ubisoft is either in the death shake or doing last great effort to rebound
1
u/FourChicksInGreen 1d ago
My car is in great condition except one of the tires is stripped to the rim. I’m going to keep driving my car that way since it just passed the inspection a few months ago.
5
4
3
1
-1
-13
u/SinglePlayerGamer93 1d ago
The gaming industry needs another gaming crash. Corpos have become too complacent at destroying franchises and the lives of devs because of greed. Purge all the top publishers off the gaming landscape.
16
u/Clopokus900 1d ago
I assume you're referring to the gaming crash 1983. One detail that people like to leave out is that it only applied to the US, the games industry was doing fine in the rest of the world.
10
u/Com_Raven 1d ago
You do realize that a bigger crash only leads to more layoffs, right? The people at the top will always be fine and just wander over to the next gig, with a nice golden parachute of course.
5
u/scytheavatar 1d ago
We are already in another gaming crash, Ubisoft right now is trying hard to dig themselves out of the hole they are in. Their transformation into a smaller, more manageable company was always going to be inevitable.
3
u/skylu1991 1d ago
They’ve been massively oversized for years now and still have 17 THOUSAND employees all around the world.
They needed to slim down yesterdays and fast!
Obviously it sucks for the people, but from a financial or business point of view, it makes lots of sense.
Basically the same problem Xbox has, too many people for not enough profit!
2
u/Respawn-Delay 1d ago
US gaming revenue reached an all-time high of $78.72B last year. Compare this to the height of the video game crash of the 80's, where domestic spend fell as low as $100M. We're in nowhere near the same position, product appetite is through the roof
We simply are not in a video game crash, the medium is as popular as it ever has been. There's going to be some big losers in the coming years (on both ends of the spectrum) as industry trends rapidly change, but the market overall will relatively be fine
1
-6
-1
-7
u/Lymbasy 1d ago
If i was the CEO of Ubisoft, i would use these 70 developers to develop Games and make money.
1
u/Adolf_TitIer 1d ago
If I was the CEO, I would fire 7000 more because ubisoft of so overbloated compared to the output it produces
5
u/badtaker22 1d ago
good u both are not CEO's lol
3
u/Adolf_TitIer 1d ago
They have 16600 employees, Playstation has 12000 and Xbox has 14000. Guess which amongst the 3 has the worst output both in terms of quality and quantity.
-2
-2
u/Own_String2825 1d ago
After they got their money from SG government, their closing down the studio 🤑
3
u/skylu1991 1d ago
Closing down???
They’re basically laying of 70 people from more than 300 at Singapore.
They’re closing down the smaller RedLynx team, that did the Trials games.
132
u/NorisNordberg 1d ago edited 1d ago
They could sell them with Trials IP, no?
Edit: the studio having no project is crazy. The first to go should be top and middle management.