Layoffs Hit Obsidian Entertainment, Number Affected Unknown
Rather quietly, Fallout: New Vegas and Dungeon Siege III developer Obsidian Entertainment laid off an unspecified number of staff last week.
Since finishing Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian has continued to work with Bethesda Softworks on downloadable content for the title. It's likely the summer-bound Dungeon Siege III is nearing completion, so while layoffs are always unfortunate news, it's commonplace as projects begin to wrap up.
As initially noticed by , the Obsidian message boards have collected farewells, sign-offs and goodbyes from some developers affected by changes.
Fallout: New Vegas kept the franchise moving, while Bethesda moved onto other projects.
"11 years, nearly a dozen shipped titles, Designer, Lead, Producer, cancelled game, survived 7 layoffs, 8th got me," tweeted now-former producer Akil Hooper, part of the company for nearly four years. "Not a bad track record.
"Today marks my 3 year anniversary working at Obsidian Entertainment," said gameplay programmer Justin Reynard. "To my coworkers (and sadly the ones we've lost) you guys are amazing.<3"
"No longer work at Obsidian," said former quality assurance tester Ashley Better. "I guess this means I will have to start buying my own pens. [...] As a follow up, not going to go into details, it is fine no harsh feelings anywhere."
I've contacted Obsidian for further details on the layoffs, and will update this story if I hear back.
Since finishing Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian has continued to work with Bethesda Softworks on downloadable content for the title. It's likely the summer-bound Dungeon Siege III is nearing completion, so while layoffs are always unfortunate news, it's commonplace as projects begin to wrap up.
As initially noticed by , the Obsidian message boards have collected farewells, sign-offs and goodbyes from some developers affected by changes.
Fallout: New Vegas kept the franchise moving, while Bethesda moved onto other projects.
"11 years, nearly a dozen shipped titles, Designer, Lead, Producer, cancelled game, survived 7 layoffs, 8th got me," tweeted now-former producer Akil Hooper, part of the company for nearly four years. "Not a bad track record.
"Today marks my 3 year anniversary working at Obsidian Entertainment," said gameplay programmer Justin Reynard. "To my coworkers (and sadly the ones we've lost) you guys are amazing.<3"
"No longer work at Obsidian," said former quality assurance tester Ashley Better. "I guess this means I will have to start buying my own pens. [...] As a follow up, not going to go into details, it is fine no harsh feelings anywhere."
I've contacted Obsidian for further details on the layoffs, and will update this story if I hear back.
