Silicon Knights confirms job lay-offs

By Fred Dutton Published 1 November, 2011

Blames cancelled Activision project.

Too Human developer Silicon Knights has confirmed reports of a drastic set of redundancies at the studio.

CFO Mike Mays told the Financial Post that it has shed 45 employees, leaving just under 40 staff on the payroll.

Mays cited a cancelled project for Activision as the reason behind the cut-backs.

"We just finished a project with [Activision] that got completed," he explained, referring to critically-savaged superhero effort X-Men Destiny.

"We had another project lined up that had been in the works for months, which had been green-lit and at the final second, at the high corporate level, the project got canceled. We don't know why. Probably something to do with the publisher on their side, but that resulted in us having too many people so we had to do a lay-off."

Mays added that it's currently negotiating contracts for new projects and hopes to rehire laid-off staff should the studio secure work.

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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 (21) Latest comment 7 months ago

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  • ulikmegee #1 7 months ago

    Nothing to do with the fact you make shit games. I lived in Ireland at the time of Poo Humans release and forked out 60 Euro on it. You deserve to be thrown into the ET game grave.

    Neg away

  • Vortextk #2 7 months ago

    Not to be an ass..but you really don't know why?

  • Fightclubber #3 7 months ago

    Doesn't blame expensive shit games?

  • HermitArcader #4 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • alsotop #5 7 months ago

    I actually liked Too Human... seems I'm one of few.

  • Thedni #6 7 months ago

    Wonder how much they pissed away with their legal dispute with Epic and how many developer's salaries that could have paid for.

  • EmiliasHorse #7 7 months ago

    I took a long time to get around to playing Too Human and picked it up for £5, must say one of the better fivers I have spent on a game.

  • Subdominator #8 7 months ago

    Even Too Human wasn't a bad game. It was just way too short, had almost no replay value and wanted to force that ridiculous control scheme on the player. The setting and gameplay were pretty good.

  • darkmorgado #9 7 months ago

    games such as Eternal Darkness show the people there have talent.
    I wonder how many of the people who worked on a game over a decade ago are still at the company...

  • digitalash #10 7 months ago

    "one of the better fivers I have spent on a game" - EmiliasHorse.

    That's going on their website.

  • Pinky_Floyd #11 7 months ago

    Wasn't it Activision that more or less pulled the plug on Raven after Singularity was released?

    Not to mention the fact it was a great game they not only refused to market, but the PC version didn't appear on Steam for months and was only available in an initial limited batch on release.

    Am I mistaken, or was that Activision?

  • woodnotes #12 7 months ago

    It's no surprise that given the terrible reviews of X-Men Destiny, Activision has thought twice about working with SK again. I think it's pretty obvious "why".

  • RedSparrows #13 7 months ago

    X Men got savaged, is why. Not played it.

    Too Human should have been better, and given the supposed sums spent, was a travesty. But I loved it.

    @Subdominator - you kinda missed the point of the game if you thought it had no replay value. It was a loot 'em up, and I personally LOVED the controls. Playing as a Beserker, it felt brilliant to smash up 100+ enemies in fluid, controlled movements. Felt like a badass.

    Sad for SK - their record is more good/great than bad. Hopefully they will soldier on. Perhaps a smaller scale, focused and tight DL title would be worth a shot? I dunno.

  • slow2run #14 7 months ago

    "We don't know why. Probably something to do with the publisher on their side, but that resulted in us having too many people so we had to lay off."

    As a publisher why would you back a company who recently have made nothing but shite games. That is your answer sir. Why would you give this fool a penny.

    In this current climate when even very good games can make a loss, why would you invest in such a studio led by people who clearly seem not to have a handle on the basics? Fuckin unreal.

  • HeNiCiDe1988 #15 7 months ago

    damn sorry to hear anyone lose jobs but after the awesomeness of eternal darkness they just dont seem to be hitting the right note. Plus I hate to be an arse also but their projects probably got cancelled because of the bad games they have been releasing and you aint gonna get money from publishers if your toxic with your games in the sense that they dont sell, if a crap game comes out but sells then it will be supported if a crap game comes out and doesnt sell its pretty obvious what that means.

    Good Luck with trying to get new contracts think they kinda done. The studio really nice place though I think its on niagra falls.
    Edited by HeNiCiDe1988 at 02/11/11 @ 02:29

  • jimmyjimbob #16 7 months ago

    Considering the amount of funding they've got from the Canadian government according to wikipedia they're turning into a bit of a joke. Taking a few million dollars every year or so and most recently 3 million in July of this year! Making all sorts of promises that they're failing on pretty impressively.

    If I was a taxpayer in Canada I'd be pretty pissed TBH

  • killuminati2911 #17 7 months ago

    I'm sorry for the people that will lose their jobs really. But the games they made were total utter crap, they deserved to shut down. Hope they get new occupations soon enough, tho provided it wasn't their fault for the past productions ;)
    Edited by killuminati2911 at 02/11/11 @ 08:25

  • Shikasama #18 7 months ago

    Absolutely no sympathy for this one. Their games were absolute rubbish.

    The only sad thing is they weren't shut down before they ballsed up an X-men license, poisoning it for the future.

  • roquey Verified Lead Quality Assurance Tester and Compliance Specialist, Universally Speaking #19 7 months ago

    Plundered countless hours into too human. would have enjoyed a sequel :(

  • rob_of_the_robots #20 7 months ago

    I didn't mind the control scheme in Too Human, it was a different approach. It was the stupid angel thing after every death that was annoying.

  • Spiders #21 7 months ago

    Natural selection.

    Make crap that nobody buys, don't expect to survive. Particularly in this economic climate. It's a shame, they had some really talented people at Silicon Knights, just a complete idiot of an overseer in Dennis Dyack, a man who wouldn't know a good game if one infested his nostrils and bore young.

    I hope they can eventually find work in the gaming industry elsewhere, and they aren't tainted by being involved with that X-men travesty or that Too Human garbage.