Huge Layoffs at Zenimax, a lot of ESO devs impacted

ErfXploded · July 6

According to Senior Content Designer Katherine Souze, half the team was laid off. She specified later that the "half of its team" she referred to is active developers working on content, events, and dungeons.

From my short browsing, people impacted that I found:
Community Manager Gina Bruno
Lead Dungeon Director Mike Finnigan
Writer Designer Andrew Siañez-De La O
Writer Designer Julianna Comstock
Senior Writer Designer Jeff Grubb
Project Art Director Marc Hudgins
Senior Concept Artist Christina Cornett
Senior Animator Ami DeLullo
Animator Evan Van Biert
Senior Tools Engineer Robert Bailey
QA Tester Page Branson
Producer Ethan Koltz
Environmental Artist Brandon Rush
Associate Sound Designer Andrew Jordan
Senior Sound Designer Daniel Costello
Associate Sound Designer Sebastian Theodoro
QA Tester Trevor Bream
DevOps Engineer William Novak
Realtime FX Artist Jacob Wynn
Senior VFX Artist Anelise Mize
Lead Designer Ed Stark
Senior Encounter Designer Morgan Goin
Encounter Designer Erinn Fecteau
Senior Encounter Designer James Audet
Tools Product Owner Sydney Thibeault
Senior Software Engineer Dustin Thurston
Live Game Lead Gregory Roth
Content Manager Milo Webb
QA Manager Erik Mabry
Narrative Director Bill Slavicsek
Lead Narrative Designer Richard Baker
Writer Designer Alexandria Baker
Writer Designer Ameya Vinayaraj
Principal Environment Artist Ching Lau
Senior Gameplay Designer Carrie Day
Senior Full Stack Web Engineer Taryn Kimball
Senior Environment Artist Mike Marsicano
Art Producer Nicole Pickren
Quest Designer Mike Kern
Lead Graphic Designer David Campbell
Infrastructure Operations Manager Sammy Knight
Principal Capture Artist Daniel Hoppes
Senior Motion Graphics Artist Alyssa Gobelle
Lead Producer Yvonne Becker
Gameplay Engineer Matthew Cech
Senior Animator Radacal Alexander
Senior Encounter Designer Stephanie Newland
Principal Animator Jae Yoon Oh
Senior Mocap Animator Eric Oliver
Animator Eric Veltre
Associate Director of Data Engineering Joshua Qarnifex
Principal VFX Artist John Fulmer
Principal Concept Artist Michael Lacek
3D Animator Allison Rossi
Tools Software Engineer Michael Adamson
QA Tester Jonathan Zwick
World Builder Kitty Hughes
Senior QA Tester Christopher Jones
VFX Artist Nathaniel Merves
Studio Game Director Rich Lambert
Senior Content Designer Janet Priblo
Principal World Builder Steve Pawlik
Principal World Builder Michael Gold
World Builder Ryan Laflamme
Lead Outsourcing Manager Vladislav Osipov
Senior UI Engineer James Sammartino
BethesdaDE team
Audio Director Brad Derrick
Studio Head Joseph Burba
Executive Producer Susan Kath
Studio Operations Director Ala Diaz
Principal Capture Artist Devin Edgerton
Principal Sound Designer Matthew Conway
Senior Sound Designer Jeremy Garren
Capture Artist Cayde Anderson
Senior Encounter Designer Daniel Brennan
Senior Capture Artist Tracy Smith
Capture Artist Jonathan Rivera
IT Support Specialist 2 Steven Rose
Producer Lisa Mourat
Principal Graphic Designer Michael Fritz
Senior Sound Designer Dean Cristofori
Associate Sound Designer Sebastian Teodoro
Associate Sound Designer Andrew Jordan
Senior VO Supervisor Jessica Crowe
Lead QA Tester Caleb Byers
Senior Concept Artist Michael May

Bethesda
Community Manager Jessica Clark
Game Designer Simon Préfontaine
GRC Engineer Wayne Saunders
Associate Quest Designer Griffin DeClaire
Quest Designer Stephanie Zachariadis
Systems Designer Jean Paul Salman
Gameplay Engineer Anne Barrett
Monetization Designer Kevin Benavides
Lead Systems Designer Jacob Naasz
Senior Build and Release Programmer Anthony Ford
Lead Quest Designer Joshua Moretto
Senior QA Tester Steven Hoyle
Lead Lighting Artist Keith Beltramini
Senior Sound Designer Casey Coffman
Creations Program Manager Bobby Libby
Systems Designer Alec Tryan
Senior Producer Rosalie Kofsky
Associate Gameplay Programmer Maeve Upton
Lead Gameplay Programmer Christopher Skelton
Senior Producer Rebeccah Bassell
Senior Technical Artist Paul Hormis
Senior Producer Iryna Murin
User Research Coordinator Emily Hampshire
Senior 3D Artist Dusten Jameson
User Researcher Keith Boney
Senior User Researcher Charles Somerville
Senior User Accessibility Researcher Elisabeth Whyte
Senior QA Tester 2 Michelle McKinney
Lead QA Tester James Alexander
Workplace Occupancy Planner Joseph Waeyaert
Senior Character Artist Christiane Meister
Lead Weapon Artist Dane Olds
Senior Concept Illustrator Ray Lederer
Environment Artist Madeleine Rabil
Associate Director Tim Beggs
Systems Designer Justin Pereira

spartaxoxo · July 6

So many staff members is a really bad sign. Can't believe Gina and Finn got hit. I'll miss seeing them. I'm so sad for all affected.

code65536 · July 6

:'(

MyNameIsElias · July 6

Corporate greed destroys everything it acquires.

My deepest condolances to the people affected today

ToddIngram · July 6

This combined with last years layoffs makes me very concerned for the future. I don't see how ESO continues like this.

AzuraFan · July 6

spartaxoxo wrote: »

So many staff members is a really bad sign. Can't believe Gina and Finn got hit. I'll miss seeing them. I'm so sad for all affected.

Oh no, not Gina! So sorry to hear this!

I'm most familiar with Gina due to her presence on her streams and her posts here. I'm sorry to hear about everyone else on that list, too. This totally sucks!!

gamergirldk · July 6

nop I dont see how they can keep up the roadmap they have planed

Vaalquar · July 6

Well. So thats it then I quess. When they said they will focus more on Elder Scrolls franchise I think they meant Elder Scrolls 6 and some remakes and not ESO.

ApoAlaia · July 6

spartaxoxo wrote: »

So many staff members is a really bad sign. Can't believe Gina and Finn got hit. I'll miss seeing them. I'm so sad for all affected.

No more Jessica/Gina cooking stream...

I know it might sound silly to bring that up among this chaos but it was a highlight in my calendar.

Sad times.

ErfXploded · July 6

Can't seem to edit my original post, but there's obviously more people affected
Producer Ethan Koltz

BretonMage · July 6

I can't believe it, some of them have been around forever. I'm so upset, and not a little worried too.

ApoAlaia · July 6

ErfXploded wrote: »

Can't seem to edit my original post, but there's obviously more people affected
Producer Ethan Koltz

If you hover the mouse just to the right of where the thread title ends the cursor should 'transform' into a hand.

Move it a bit further and it will become the 'text' cursor, a bit further right, it will be a hand again.

Click and you will see the 'Edit' option.

Vanilla forums have really messed it up for us.

SilverBride · July 6

I hate to see what comes next.

Dracosin369 · July 6

Canceled my subscription because of this news. I had high hopes that Microsoft would leave them alone to do their thing, but nope, Microsoft following Amazons lead in gutting their gaming divisions for no reason.

Tommy_The_Gun · July 6

Steam Machine too expensive, Sony stops physical games productions and now this....
Bad news just keeps on coming. This time line is cursed

Arunei · July 6

This is absolutely crazy news to wake up to, what the actual hell...

Dactylz · July 6

I'm sorry to hear about this, this is really, really awful news.

Synthwavius · July 6

Why Gina?

SneaK · July 6

Really surprised by Finn

Cerbolt · July 6

I don't have much hope for the future of this game. With how little staff they have left I can't see how they're going to be able to continue with same quality.

Liedeke · July 6

This is just heartbreaking.
And eso seemed like it was in a pretty good place recently? I thought the roadmap looked really good, I wonder if it's still achievable now. All of this makes me anxious for the future of the game.

laniakea_0 · July 6

@ZOS_Kevin please show us a life sign so that we know if you are still around at least.

IZZEFlameLash · July 6

Yikes, and from what we can go off of the other studios within the industry, this doesn't bode well.

Stamicka · July 6

I hate to see people lose their jobs like this. It’s really a shame how AI and greed has impacted the gaming industry. Best of luck to the remaining devs and I’m hoping the laid off ones find a new place that values their talent.

Reverb · July 6

Dracosin369 wrote: »

Canceled my subscription because of this news. I had high hopes that Microsoft would leave them alone to do their thing, but nope, Microsoft following Amazons lead in gutting their gaming divisions for no reason.

Sad to say, people reacting by cancelling subs and withholding money they would ordinarily have spent will just hasten the death of the game. I’m not saying we should spend money we wouldn’t otherwise do, but for those of us who want the game to succeed, the best thing to do is ride it out a bit and see how season one and the future roadmap shape up. There’s still a lot to love about ESO.

LadyVonde · July 6

This is so sad...

ToddIngram · July 6

Reverb wrote: »

Dracosin369 wrote: »

Canceled my subscription because of this news. I had high hopes that Microsoft would leave them alone to do their thing, but nope, Microsoft following Amazons lead in gutting their gaming divisions for no reason.

Sad to say, people reacting by cancelling subs and withholding money they would ordinarily have spent will just hasten the death of the game. I’m not saying we should spend money we wouldn’t otherwise do, but for those of us who want the game to succeed, the best thing to do is ride it out a bit and see how season one and the future roadmap shape up. There’s still a lot to love about ESO.

It's time to get back what we can before we lose it to nothing forever.

I learned my lesson when I purchased beta access to AoC that never happened. Not going to make the same mistake again.

ArctosCethlenn · July 6

Reverb wrote: »

Dracosin369 wrote: »

Canceled my subscription because of this news. I had high hopes that Microsoft would leave them alone to do their thing, but nope, Microsoft following Amazons lead in gutting their gaming divisions for no reason.

Sad to say, people reacting by cancelling subs and withholding money they would ordinarily have spent will just hasten the death of the game. I’m not saying we should spend money we wouldn’t otherwise do, but for those of us who want the game to succeed, the best thing to do is ride it out a bit and see how season one and the future roadmap shape up. There’s still a lot to love about ESO.

Literally the only way to communicate to the empty suit who made the decision that it was a stupid decision. If people keep paying while outraged about the layoffs the suits won't notice or care about what the players think, they only care about the spreadsheets.

Mathius_Mordred · July 6

That's a real shame, so sorry to hear this news.

Katelin · July 6

This is so heartbreaking to hear.

To all who were affected, I am so sorry to hear of this happening to you. Y'all were doing such excellent work and I hope you all find new work or whatever you need soon.

allochthons · July 6

I know stating here that I cancelled ESO+ doesn't mean anything.

But when Disney messed with Jimmy Fallon, the hit to Disney+ was enough to be really effective. Maybe if ESO+ memberships crash, that'll let XBox know how stupid this move is.