Silicon Knights has not announced any layoffs, but according to 1Up.com, ”two credible independent sources contacted us with the information over the weekend. One wrote that ‘Silicon Knights has had massive layoffs. They are now down to a core staff of 25 people.’ The other said, “It may interest you to note that SK laid off all but 25 employees today.’” The layoffs are so deep that Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack’s wife Joanne and the rest of the company’s human resources department were reportedly axed.
This follows a July 2011 infusion of money of $3M CDN from the Ontario government, which reportedly would not only keep all 97 members of the staff employed, but to allow 80 new hirees. There’s been no indication of what happened to the income that would have saved those jobs.
Even more disturbingly, employees found their names being removed from the credits of Silicon Knights most recent game, X-Men: Destiny, when it was released on 27th September, and moved to the Special Thanks section.
Dyack himself had agreed to but delayed interview requests since late August, first claiming a busy schedule then a family illness. A few days ago, 1Up.com was told by a source ”you might want to keep an eye on SK in the next few days. If you were connected to many of SK’s directors and producers on LinkedIn, you would be noticing a very disproportionate amount of CV updating and connection-making activity. And yes, I have heard that the worst is happening. Stay tuned.”
The official response from the Silicon Knights’ publicist was ”Silicon Knights is not shutting down and no layoffs have happened at this time.” However, Silicon Knights has not responded to any requests for confirmation on the layoffs.
