The French game workers union STJV says Don’t Nod is planning to lay off nearly all of its non-managerial staff and finish its last project with outside help. In a statement on the union’s website, reported by Rock Paper Shotgun, STJV lays out what it says the restructuring at the Life Is Strange and Lost Records studio would look like.
The plan follows Don’t Nod’s move into safeguard proceedings with up to 85 jobs at risk, a French court process meant to protect a company from creditors while it reorganizes. According to STJV, CEO Oskar Guilbert told staff that “a safeguarding process is an act of anticipation.” The union says the studio does not even have the money to finish its earlier redundancy plan.
STJV published a list of the roles it says are on the chopping block, including 6 of 6 animators, 3 of 3 character artists, 3 of 3 concept artists, 8 of 10 environment artists, 4 of 8 game designers, 3 of 5 level designers, 18 of 22 programmers and 3 of 5 QA testers. “Management is extremely clearly going for heavily individualized targeting and hasn’t been shy about their intent to keep selected people in rather than jobs, which is illegal,” the union wrote.
Those cuts would hit the studio’s last game in development, known internally as P14. STJV says management is betting everything on outside contractors, expecting managers and external teams to carry on work that has mostly been done in-house. The union argues that the cost of moving a largely internal project to outside studios, and the loss of experience built up during production, have been ignored “in favour of short-term penny-pinching.”
The union also describes negotiations with the employee council as one-sided, saying management told staff it would offer “the strict legal minimum.” It accuses leadership of ignoring years of warnings from employee representatives, middle managers and financial auditors while hoping funding would arrive for a game it calls too big and too expensive.
The timeline is short. The consultation with the CSE, the employee council, ends Nov. 3. After that, the regional employment authority has 21 days to decide on the plan, and if it is approved, staff could receive dismissal letters on Nov. 25. Don’t Nod has not publicly responded to the union’s claims.
