Embracer CEO says layoffs are "something that everyone needs to get through"

alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgmod to Gaming@beehaw.org – 100 points –
gamesindustry.biz

lol.

Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors said that the current reduction in workforce at the company and across the industry is "something that everyone needs to get through," later adding that the group's strategy has been to cut the things that have "the lowest chance of success going forward" and to only keep "the most iconic studios."

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Funny how the CEOs never have to "just get through" being laid off...

Often times they are laid off, with a generous multimillion severance package

That must be so difficult for them to "get through". Surviving for a few months, maybe a year (if non-compete clauses are enforced, which they probably aren't for CEOs) on just tens of millions, which forces them to buy only one yacht instead of three until they can get back into another well-paid CEO gig. The greatest tragedy of our age. Won't anybody think of the CEOs?!

Won’t anybody think of the CEOs?!

I'm thinking that they might be crunchy and good with ketchup if fried properly

It's like they can't get laid off... But I bet they can get laid out! #clotheslineaceo

I've been with a company that when things were down, they didn't layoff anyone but just stopped hiring and higher management took pay cuts. I've also been with a company that would do a round of layoffs almost every time they were in the red. Guess which company I enjoyed working for more and had more positive morale overall.

If the company has to lose people to remain profitable, that sounds like the executive leadership didnt know what they were doing and should be replaced.

CEOs are fricking pests/viruses. They don't know what they do or what the companies values are but get bonus payments even when they are running a company into the ground. then they just move on to another company and do the same again.

Nordic Games is talking a lot of shit for a company that fired a lot of their employees and killed their underling studios before the entire firing craze of 2023 and 2024. Hey, hows that deal with the Saudis going again? Oh, right, it fucking isn't because you staked your entire companies future on it and they decided they wanted out.

The tech industry is the ultimate sheep following sheep industry. Other tech companies laying people off? I better do it too! The Fear-Of-Looking-Stupid.

I work for an educational tech company that boomed during lockdowns. Parents, teachers, schools, and entire districts started using our product to help manage assignments during at-home learning.

It was during this time that they got a bunch of VC funding, rapidly expanded management and the executive, and then began the process of tripling the head count of individual contributors while simultaneously laying off their entire school outreach and liason department.

Oh, and of course, they set new growth targets.

Then schools reopened, and business, understandably, rapidly declined.

Except no one in management seemed to understand why it was declining? And no one wanted to listen to any explanations that lay outside of the end product or the tech stack underpinning it.

And the best part was, if anyone ever raised the point that it seemed like management expected the company to perform the same after lockdowns as during, every single person would parrot the line "yeah, but all of the tech companies did, it wasn't just us".

They're all just jumping off cliffs because their friends are doing it, too.

Had a very similar thing. Company I worked for had their best year by a long mile in 2020. Hired like crazy and talked big about all these deals in the pipeline with massive companies. Didn't understand why deals started to fall through once lockdown ended, scrambled to try and fix things but just made themselves look directionless.

I was literally told once that they were no longer hiring for the role I applied for because Facebook had slowed hiring and they were slowing hiring too in response.

The company I was applying to isn't even in the same industry as Facebook, other than both being tech companies.

You know if anyone needs to be let go maybe it's the management who were spending like there was no tomorrow and are now throwing everyone overboard to stop the ship from sinking. Or, you know, just keep cancelling games and shuttering studios. I'm sure that'll work out eventually.

I've just been through a recent round of layoffs, though I luckily avoided sacking, and let me tell you the collective hurt that layoffs cause, even among those who remain, makes me think that each person leaving should get to punch each deciding executive once.