The team is currently working on Driver: San Francisco. It’s the ”jobs themselves” made redundant says Ubi, not the people. It’s a ”crucial” studio.
”We weren’t given names, but they took some people into a separate office afterwards, gave them a letter and took them out of the building. That was it,” said a source at Ubisoft Reflections. Ubi has confirmed 19 people will be affected by this reshuffle.
”There was a meeting to propose reorganisations to the team that may result in redundancies of up to a dozen studio members,” said a Ubisoft rep. ”This is a proposal for reorganisation, and it isn’t the people who are made redundant, but the jobs themselves. The people get to have their say about the reorganisation.”
“Overall, this may result in redundancies effecting up to a dozen studio team members. When we are in a heavy production time, as we are with Driver, there are a lot of contract workers, and I do believe about seven workers will not have their contracts renewed.”
”The changes in staff have hit all levels of the studio. There were people from all levels. Some were high up, people who have been at the company for a very long time. Craig Lawson and Jack Couvela haven’t come back into work since,” said a source. Lawson was creative director and Couvela was art director, veterans since ‘98 and ‘97.
Delays have been affecting the Driver project reveals the studio insider and its forced Ubisoft to step in and change their plans. The language the higher ups are using has the studio on edge as to their fate after the game gets shipped off.
”We’ve been told that we shouldn’t worry about what’s going to happen after the game has come out. To me that isn’t a very good sign. When the management are telling you not to worry about the studio and concentrate on the game, everyone gets worried,” he said.
“Everyone is pretending that it hasn’t happened. Nobody has mentioned the people who have gone, and we haven’t had any meetings about it. They have just said that for the time being, everyone who needs to be told has been told. ‘For the time being’ is worrying.”
“People think that when we have finished this game we will all be told ‘off you go now’.” However Ubisoft have dismissed the idea saying the Newcastle-based digs are a major part of the wider company.
”What’s key at Reflections is that we are working on a small reorganisation, we need to ensure that we have the right skills mix for the Driver brand. The brand is very important to us, and Reflections is crucial as a studio. They have an expertise that none of our other studios have,” said Ubisoft. “It will absolutely keep going after Driver.”
Driver: San Francisco releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in fiscal 2012. Ubisoft Montreal has now been called on to co-develop the latest instalment as an associate team.
