Disney lays off Epic Mickey devs?

By Fred Dutton Published 24 January, 2011

Redundancies reported at Junction Point.

Disney Interactive is handing out P45s at Warren Spector's Junction Point studio, according to numerous industry sources.

A post on the Twitter feed of Bryan Cash, a programmer based just down the road from Spector's Austin outfit at Schell Games, earlier today read "Condolences to those folks laid off from Junction Point."

A Tweet from Mike Jungbluth, a developer at WB Games Seattle, added "I hope my homies at Junction Point are alright. Hearing about layoffs there makes me very sad indeed."

We've reached out to Disney Interactive for further information on what's going on down there and will update the story as soon as we hear back.

Junction Point was formed by Deus Ex creator Warren Spector in 2005 and acquired by Disney in 2007. Its first game for the House of Mouse was Wii exclusive Epic Mickey, which launched in November. Despite middling reviews and a disappointing UK chart debut, the game got off to a strong start in the US, shifting around 1.3 million copies in its first month on sale

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (29) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • adofessex #1 1 year ago

    This is kind of shocking, seems that if you don't get it perfect first time, you're out. I feel sorry for them.

  • Oh-Bollox #2 1 year ago

    "Step into my office. First, well done on making a commercially successful game. Second, you're fired. Get out."

  • Hunam #3 1 year ago

    Seems like disney havn't got what they want out of the games industry right away and are giving up?

  • Horse #4 1 year ago

    Commiserations to these guys, undeserved.

    On a side-note, I hate that 'reached out' phrase.

  • DreadedWalrus #5 1 year ago

    Nice to see Disney being consistent, anyway. It would be a bit unusual if they had a division that didn't act in a generally unsavoury manner.

  • DreadedWalrus #6 1 year ago

    PS_2010: From the article: Despite middling reviews and a disappointing UK chart debut, the game got off to a strong start in the US, shifting around 1.3 million copies in its first month on sale

    1.3m copies in the US in the first month sounds successful enough to me. I mean, sure, it's not megabucks, but most publishers tend to look at the million mark, it seems.

  • Bleemo #7 1 year ago

    Hate to say I told you so, but I did, Disney are backing out of AAA bye bye Black rock studios too.

  • arcam #8 1 year ago

    Sucks that you can get fired after selling a million.

  • LazyNinjaUk #9 1 year ago

    In my honest opinion Disney have yet to understand how the games industry works, it seems their gut reaction to everything isn't analyse why a game didn't perform well and look how to improve future releases, it's to sack everyone and anyone involved.

    Leaving hundreds of hard working and extremely talented people to wonder what else they could have done to not get the sack by a company that makes billions every year, yet cuts and runs at the first sign of trouble. Cunts.

  • pantherboy #10 1 year ago

    Commiserations for the devs, Disney are taking the mick.

  • moskiitto #11 1 year ago

    Bah, game is a success (1.3 million copies sold) and this is what team is getting?
    This is not how to do things, Disney! Oh well, most likely someone will pick these guys up.

  • rudderless #12 1 year ago

    From what I gather, Epic Mickey cost a fortune to make. It would have needed to sell more than 1.3 million to break even.

  • WinterSnowblind #13 1 year ago

    It was definitely darker than most Disney things, but Disney has been rather dark in the past as well and seeing a twisted take on Disney World was really great. It wasn't an amazing game but good and I would have liked to see what the developers could do to improve it.

  • LOLLERS #14 1 year ago

    UH-OH

  • davoshendo #15 1 year ago

    Think this is all a knock on from the $50 million wasted on the Pirates game.
    I had honestly just posted this pic before I found out about these (latest) redundancies.
    Eerily apt?
    http://negativepixel.wordpress.com/

  • TonyHarrison #16 1 year ago

    By next Christmas, this game could have sold 5million in America alone... Madness.

  • Skurmedel #17 1 year ago

    Sadly they are not alone in the US. Their unemployment rate is 9.4%, 15 million people unemployed. One and half times the size of my country. On the bright side their tech industry is hiring quite a lot at the moment so perhaps they won't have to look around for long.
    Edited by Skurmedel at 25/01/11 @ 00:37

  • Lusterpurge #18 1 year ago

    Why would American employees be getting a P45? In Texas, I'd imagine they would be getting the much more manly Pink Slip.

  • Total_Khaos #19 1 year ago

    @Lusterpurge:

    Apparently, you forgot what website you were reading this article on. A P45 is the European equivalent of a pink slip in the US, as you somewhat eluded to.

    They obviously didn't want to confuse their own reader base.
    Edited by Total_Khaos at 25/01/11 @ 02:39

  • TheTingler #20 1 year ago

    Hopefully it's just a couple of people, which is normal after a big game ships.

    After the utter botch-job they made with Propaganda Studios however (cancel a very promising game in a franchise that's never had a great game and should have one, and keep going with a dull film tie-in that always looking half-hearted with a franchise that's already had one great game - then just fire everyone) I don't believe Disney are that sensible.

  • siro #21 1 year ago

    Considering this is Disney's biggest brand and putting a huge time led by one of best-known producers on it, it's only natural they considered it selling loads. They prolly expected sales more around the 5 million mark.

    Also, since Spector pointed out repeatedly that the team for Epic Mickey was huge, these layoffs may have happened no matter what, as they likely don't have enough new projects to compensate for the now free staffers. And we don't know the actual number of layoffs yet, do we?

  • midnight_walker #22 1 year ago

    That's a real shame. After seeing Epic Mickey at E3 I was all over it, and to be fair it was a little disappointing after seeing all that promise, but it's still a decent enough game, and it's one of a rare breed on the Wii where it seems like the devs actually poured themselves into it as much as they could.

  • Murton #23 1 year ago

    Layoffs like this simply shouldn't happen, there's just no excuse. By the sounds of it it's another case of filling the building with as many staffers as you can hire to mee the deadline and then laying them all off because there's not enough work to sustain them afterwards, aside from being horribly inefficient it's just a dick move towards the poor bastards that you've hired, many of which will likely be working in the industry for the first time.

    If developers/publishers aren't willing or able to arrange their projects properly so that a small but dedicated workforce can move from one project to the next then the least they can do is be a little more open about it. Rather than lay off a load of people as soon as the game is released announce a couple of months beforehand that there'll be some redundancies after release, this gives staffers a fighting chance of getting new work once the project is complete and will therefore not have the same negative impact on staff morale as D-Day approaches.

  • Der_tolle_Emil #24 1 year ago

    I feel for the guys. Getting fired sucks. At least they are not killing the entire studio. If the studio was founded in 2005 and then bought int 2007 yet their first game came out in 2010 then getting 'just' 1.3 million sales is probably not enough to cover for all the costs from the last few years.

    Since this is their first game there's a good chance that the studio does not have enough experience yet to function efficiently. If there are too many people on the team for it to work then people have to go. It's sad but understandable and in my opinion still better than firing the entire studio.

  • DanWhitehead #25 1 year ago

    From what I gather, Epic Mickey cost a fortune to make. It would have needed to sell more than 1.3 million to break even.

    This. This this this. 1.3 million is a large number, yeah, but once the retailers cut is taken out, and distribution costs, and marketing costs, the pie gets sliced incredibly thin. What's left probably won't cover the rent and salaries needed to sustain a long-term development. Once budgets get to those silly levels the definition of "success" changes radically.

    The games industry just isn't designed to absorb these enormous budgets for games that take years to complete because there's no ancilliary market where a project can claw its way into the black over the years. There's just DLC, and if your game doesn't support that then it needs to make its budget back through unit sales. Given that most games are down to half price within three months, that's pretty much impossible for titles that cost millions to make.

    On the flipside, Disney can release a movie like Tangled, which is (semi-secretly) one of the most expensive movies ever made. They've been working on a Rapunzel movie for about ten years, and all those development costs get tagged onto the bill for the finished movie. Of course, Tangled can cost over a quarter of a billion dollars and still stand a chance of making a profit because there'll be DVD and Blu-ray sales, it can be premiered on Disney's subscription-only TV channels, then packaged out again to terrestrial TV. It can be sold to airlines and hotels. Crucially, they can sell toys, t-shirts and other merchandise.

    Games can't do any of that, or at least not in the same scale that a movie can manage. Publishers will take a hit in their stock price for these huge gambles and get a slap on the wrist from the City, but shit always rolls downhill so it's the developers at the bottom of the production chain who end up taking the real damage.

    Meanwhile, talented (and lucky) indie devs made up of just a few people are making fortunes self-publishing online or on the App Store. The giant lumbering industry dinosaurs need to evolve into (angry) birds or end up as fossils.

  • Meho #26 1 year ago

    Dan Whitehead, you're so correct in everything you say that I just peed a little from excitement. Well done, man!

  • andromeda #27 1 year ago

    "I hope my homies at Junction Point are alright"

    How do I know thats spoken by a fairly rotund WHITE guy with rectangular specs and a goatee?

    seriously thou, sad that anyone has to get fired.
    Best of luck finding new jobs.

  • Golgo #28 1 year ago

    I don't see why Disney should expect any more than the 1.3 million sales they got. It was a very decent game (I thought) that did well with the Mickey Mouse IP, which is hardly a hot property nowadays is it, let's be fair?!

  • DrMGinius #29 1 year ago

    Well I dont feel sorry for the ones who designed the cameras.