2.23.2011

Laid of from NetDevil

Well this sucks... haha.

Unfortunately a lot of talented folks lost their jobs as I've been finding out on Facebook! I personally think it's pretty terrible to find news out that way and not to be correctly notified. We all were receiving phone calls tonight and I just got mine about 2 hrs ago.

From what we've been told a handful of artists will be kept on board and continue working on Lego Universe. But at the moment that will be a very, VERY small team. As the count continues to rise on FB, they've cut over 20 people.

I will say I did enjoy the fun times I had at ND and my pushup club which was going strong for 18 weeks! I had over 35 people in the club at one point! With that said I wanted to share one of my last animations at NetDevil:



My other animations can be viewed on my vimeo page as well - This animation was particuallary challenging due to time constraints, limit on frames, parent constraints, reanimating twice because of wrong assets-which required a new balloon rig.

All in all, I feel this was one of my best animations, although parts are too quick and the overlap on the loose balloon are hard to watch at times I did what I could and it doesn't look to bad in-game either.

I truly hope everyone lands on their feet and finds a new fun adventure! It was a great experience and it was awesome to be apart of something (at the time) so fun and exciting. To my ND peps - I wish you the best!

**update: just to clarify - We were all told we were "safe" just a week or so ago, and last night the first couple of people let go were posting on FB. Then all hell broke loose on FB and everyone was getting anxious, so yes- its a total surprise to be getting a call saying you lost your job. Personally, it sucks to find out massive layoffs are happening and watching friends post about it before you know or hear anything directly.

What really sucks for me is I took time off for the holiday and was heading back into the studio - but no, I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to some people.
-tc

3 comments:

Toby Cochran said...

as it's showing I'm linked to different sites now, I just want to say I'm not angry, just upset.

What upsets me, are the employees who have been at the company 3+ years and have families that will have to relocate now.

I'm still young and my journey is just starting.

I wish them all the best of luck!!

eiyukabe said...

I read about this on Gamasutra. Even if you aren't angry, I am angry for you. Not just that there were layoffs, but in the cowardly, indirect way in which you were notified (after being told that things were going to be okay). My first layoff in this industry wasn't so different. Oh well, best of luck to all involved.

Deg said...

I'm really bummed to hear the news. I really enjoyed LU during the beta and found it fun and polished unlike most other MMOs. It must be a tough industry if a game that good is struggling.