Following a spate of cuts and closures, Square-Enix Europe boss Phil Rogers has talked about the company’s cost cutting measures.
Making cuts to a workforce is always going to raise questions, and Square-Enix has made a lot of cuts recently. In a Q&A session with Develop, Square-Enix Europe CEO Phil Rogers answered a number of questions about the cuts to Io Interactive and Beautiful Game Studios, and confirmed for the first time that Eidos Hungary – makers of the Battlestations games – had been closed.
“We took the decision back in October,” he said, “and this all goes back to the broad strategy of focusing on games that are either first or best. We were pleased with Eidos Hungary, but I think we realized that to be first or best in the RTS genre was going to be really challenging. It wasn’t necessarily something we were going to win. On the balance of all that we decided that we would focus elsewhere and not move forward with the Battlestations IP and Eidos Hungary.”
Rogers also said that Beautiful Game Studios still had a role to play as a development and research hub, despite the loss of most of its programmers, and that Io Interactive had had “surpluses”, but that the developer still had the capability to develop multiple projects
Rogers was also asked if he anticipated more cuts, to which he said: “I don’t think right now I would use the word anticipate, I would say that we are in a world of constant change. The industry used to work in this cycle where there would be these set function changes every four or five years … In terms of that kind of change, yes these things are going to be constantly looked at. There’s nothing imminent on the horizon, but I think anyone in our industry today is got to look at all the opportunities that are emerging.”
Source: Develop
Published: Apr 19, 2010 04:14 pm