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Sony Studio LinkedIn employee counts
- Thread starter Mibu no ookami
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midnightAI
Member
Most of these are way off, Bungie has 820 ish, Asobi is over 60, Pixel Opus is over 50 now I believe
DEAD ORIGINAL
Member
Wow didn't realise how bad COVID was/is there all dead but one.
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Part of the reason Sony bought them is due to their backend knowledge and technology.
SaucyJack
Member
Not even close.
It’s showing the number of people with a LinkedIn profile with those studios as their current employer. This will omit people who don't have a LinkedIn profile or whose profile is not up to date. Similarly it may show people who have left whose profile is not up to date.
Some of those studios have 4 or 5 times as many employees.
midnightAI
Member
And some appear to be much smaller (Bungie for example, at the time Sony purchased them they had 826 employees, I cant see them growing by 600 employees since then)
Source: Sony Business Segment Briefing 2022
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Mibu no ookami
Member
PlayStation’s acquisition season is about purchasing variety within limits
Acquisition season is still here for Sony, so let's take a look at what the PlayStation company is thinking.
venturebeat.com
This specifically states they were at 250 in 2021 and linkedin reports 262. Again these numbers are very much in line with a ballpark of where they are. I'd say for the larger studios 75+ (western studios) these are probably accurate within 10-20 percent, which is definitely as close as we need them to be to get an understanding of their relative size.
Mibu no ookami
Member
The Sony financial doc states 826 Full-Time Employees. This would not count part-time, co-op/interns, and there may very well be a large number of contractors who list bungie as their actual employer here.
Linkedin reports a 15% headcount growth for Bungie within the last 6 months. If they had 900 6 months ago that would mean they have a minimum of 1035 employees now. That would mean this is listing is 72.4% accurate. Linkedin headcount growth is calculated by new employees adding linkedin to their profile for the specific time frame given (i.e. started in the last 6 months), subtracted by the amount of employees who have removed bungie from their profiles.
We're 9 months out from when Sony announced buying them. They have 15 percent growth from 6 months ago. So if they hired about 70 employees in Q1 and an additional 15 percent (145 employees) in the subsequent 6 months that would bring them to 1115. Which brings it to within 78% accuracy here. And again, we don't know what number of interns, co-ops, part timers, and contractors who might be listing bungie as their employer here who would not be captured in the original 900 employees who were discussed at the time. It's also possible that the 826 number as cited by Sony as the FTEs is more closely accurate, but I seriously doubt that given the specificity.
qthaumaturge
Banned
ICE is a meta-team they are on payroll of all the different studios they are from.
Mibu no ookami
Member
As I mentioned, I don't think linkedin is as prevalent in Japan.
I don't think you're going to see that level of rapid growth for these companies. These aren't start ups and recruiting is pretty calculated. You have to take into account their budgets and the overall economy, you have to consider that the talent pool is pretty shallow at the moment. Start ups particularly are very aggressive here in terms of hiring new people, while companies like Sucker Punch and to a lesser degree Bluepoint are going to have difficulty recruiting people who match exactly what they're already doing.
That sony doc that was passed around stated that bluepoint had 69 full time employees at purchase. Linkedin shows them at 71 now with only 6 percent headcount growth. They have only 7 job openings posted on their career page. They're only hiring for on-site in Austin, so their growth is going to be limited to people in the area and people willing to relocate.
I guess my point is these companies generally don't grow that fast, especially at this point in their maturity. There are a lot of reasons involved, but it's not impossible.
Naughty Dog had 120 employees in 2010. Uncharted 2 really changed things for them. I think GoT may similarly change things for Sucker Punch, but it would really take sustained growth to get them anywhere close to doubling in size let alone triple. You'll remember that Naughty Dog made Uncharted 3 and then had like a 1.5 teams so they could do Last of Us, which was obviously massive. Then you had teams working on Uncharted 4 and Last of Us 2.
It'll take a couple sustained big hits before we see real growth at either Bluepoint or Sucker Punch. Even Santa Monica in comparison isn't that big and they've only had a couple misses. They're gearing up on expanding a second team.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
One thousand dollars? Yeah, I think they might be a bit over that.
remember_spinal
Banned
Sony got ripped off
Kokoloko85
Member
Sucker Punch and Santa Monica need some more teams.
StealthGoblin
Banned
All of those are off and by quite a long way. All SIE teams have been on huge hiring sprees and so have their 2nd party teams.
StealthGoblin
Banned
That included quite a lot of Studio Japan talent who are no longer with SIEJ any more.
Robbinhood
Banned
You don’t necessarily need more than 200 to make a great AAA game but some of use studios have multiple teams working on multiple projects like ND and Insomniac so it’s justified. Great way to expand and keep quality control when your top producers can overlook and design games within the same studio.
Bend is mighty impressive, days gone is so good and it’sa relatively small team
Bend is mighty impressive, days gone is so good and it’sa relatively small team
remember_spinal
Banned
They technically are. They’re an SIE studio
Mibu no ookami
Member
Where did I say it was?
Mibu no ookami
Member
Not enough. Sony needs more studios thanks to MS latest rampage.
I think if Sony is going to delve into PC and Mobile to 50% of their investment by 2025 AND stay true to their core AND invest nearly 65% into Live Service they're going to need to nearly double in size by the end of the generation.
Sure but 1000 people cant work on just backend. I also doubt more than 150 people work on Destiny 2??
remember_spinal
Banned
Bungie have like 3 games in development along with Destiny 2 content and expansions.
Aenima
Member
Thats not an acurate number at all. Team Asobi has more than 60 emplyees as of 2022.
https://www.sie.com/en/blog/studio-spotlight-team-asobi/
They were a small team inside Japan Studio but since Japan Studio was disbanded and Team Asobi became a studio, alot of staff from Japan Studio moved to Team Asobi.
GreatnessRD
Member
We need Jimmay to up those Nixxes numbers. We need to see them PC ports continued to be pumped out and well done. Let's go!
Black_Stride
do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
150 people put Destiny 2 together?
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Skifi28
Member
My parents told me I could be anything I wanted when I grew up, so I became a studio.
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Captain Toad
Banned
Interesting you should say that. Our son just came out yesterday and told his mother and me that he identifies as a studio.
Ozzy Onya A2Z
Member
Classic. I should have said 1,000 staff. Crazy they're at 1,500.
Mibu no ookami
Member
It'll be an interesting reference point in 3-5 years... especially to chart the growth of some of the mid-size studios.
Studios like Sucker Punch are very much where Naughty Dog was in 2010. If Sony's studios take a similar trajectory, it'll be great for them. They have a lot riding on Ghost of Tsushima 2, but they should also make sure that they don't get pigeonholed into one franchise. but with that said, they should probably leave Infamous behind and Sly should probably be revived by a different studio.
I honestly always thought the slower growth was simply that they only hired for what they needed and weren't really hiring based off trying to grow the studios into being able to make multiple projects.
For the 2 teams that Naughty Dog has. I'm kinda iffy on it. Like I'm pretty sure they were still nearly 1.5 teams during the Uncharted 4 and last of 2 games since they had like 4 years between each major release excluding the stand-alone game.
From what I vaguely remember Naughty Dog doubled in size during the ps4. They were like mid 200s for the longest time. The 700 something seems a bit odd but it is possible since they are doing that online game. If the 700 number is legit then they really should have a ton of games incoming but all we have heard so far is the remake and that online game.
”work” not ”worked”
Are more than 150 people supporting Destiny 2 with content ”currently”? The engine is done, systems in place, ai done (new enemies are usually reskins) etc
Ass of Can Whooping
Banned
They're not putting out expansions every year with less than 150 people
The artful mincer
Member
Man insomniac surely was the deal of century! They don't get the same limelight or critical acclaim as Sonys other studios but they are surely the most profitable at least since spiderman 2018.
There the studio that seems to crunch the least as well..... maybe there's a lesson to be learned there!
There the studio that seems to crunch the least as well..... maybe there's a lesson to be learned there!
Not even close, unless you find somewhere that employees are REQUIRED to use LinkedIn this is a huge stupid and oddly obsessive waste of time. You see if that there's nothing that requires an employee to use it, then these numbers you've chummed from LinkedIn are nothing.
Completely 100% useless because company size these days doesn't reflect quality as they can push a smaller company to produce amazing work.
It's the most worthless and yet hilarious and somewhat creepy way to make a worthless metric that might be valid in your own mind. You probably won't even be able to conceptualize how my first point about LinkedIn disqualifies the entire exercise.
The only people that would get any use of stats like these are employment agencies or Sony itself, and its numbers are accurate.
At least maybe now you might be able to see my point of the silly gif response I gave you originally, it's all this thread deserves.
Go play a game or something.
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Negotiator101
Member
Like who?
Mibu no ookami
Member
They were 1.5 teams but they've filled out enough to be two teams. The way we categorize them as teams is probably misleading though. It all comes down to project work. They probably have enough staff now to work on 2.5 major projects at once and I surmise that they are realizing that they don't have the staff to support Uncharted, Last of Us, Last of Us MP, and an original IP. This is why we've seen them focus on small cash lucrative projects. TLOU2 definitely sold less than expectations, which is a big burden for a large studio. You need your hits to hit. Rather than have layoffs, you see these projects like Uncharted PS5/PC bundle, LOU2 e.t.c.
You carefully grow based on project demands. You never really hire just to hire. Let's say you have a team of 10 artists, but they're stretched thin and maybe missing deadlines. Maybe you hire 4 more artists. I think traditionally a lot of these companies would just contract those jobs out temporarily, but that's not the smartest thing to do long term. Same with every other department, writers, programmers, designers, e.t.c. You can build a bigger game and faster with more people. You look at Rockstar and they employ 2000 people and they only output a couple of games a generation and pivot around them (650+ people work at DMA Design/Rockstar North), but then you have GTA V sell 150 million copies ( don't ask me how) and red dead sold very well as well.
Sony needs to start fleshing its games out a bit more and giving its AAA studios time to build in-depth worlds.
That's what separates studios like Insomniac and Naughty Dog from being studios like Rockstar and CD Projekt Red. In 2016 CDPR had 240 employees... they now have over 1000 and can build truly massive games. Obviously, they grew maybe faster than they should have, but that is besides the point.
Speculation, but if Naughty Dog can give up TLOU and Uncharted, it'll be the best thing for their studio and the best thing for Sony.
Mibu no ookami
Member
Mibu no ookami
Member
Obviously companies don't require employees to use linkedin, but the vast majority of employees in professional services like this use it. I don't know what you do for a living, maybe you flip burgers, but in tech, people use linkedin.
I can tell you that my companies' linkedin numbers are VERY accurate to what we have for employees.
Why aren't you playing a game, why are you here? It's interesting to find out how companies grow and how that impacts the kind of games they can make in the future. A company the size of 150 people aren't going to make GTA5... CDPR can't make a GTA5 type game with their size either so it tells you to be cautious about a game like Cyberpunk.
Mibu no ookami
Member
All we know is how much Sony bought them for, we don't know if they picked up the tab on significant debt in the process.
Insomniac had a lot of misses until Spider-Man, and even though Spider-Man sold well, it has a lot of mouths to feed with Sony, Marvel, and Insomniac. Original IP always have a much higher profit margin and Insomniac really doesn't have any majorly profitable original IP.
Right now, Marvel could decide, hey we don't want you take make spider-man games unless they are on all systems or hey we don't want you to make spider-man games at all. They're entirely at the whim of another company, which isn't a great situation to be in.
What Spider-Man and potentially Wolverine allow Insomniac to do is drastically increase the size of their studio on the back of profitable games and help push PlayStation hardware, but at some point they'll need to pivot away from these games.
Mibu no ookami
Member
People ask why Dreams or Bloodborne aren't on PC yet... the size of these studios matter.
FromSoftware doesn't belong to Sony, so Bloodborne isn't a priority for them and if Sony does it internally, it's a project that will take up resources.
Media Molecule is a small company with presumably little PC experience.
Please tell me more about how size doesn't matter...
Wow, you replied to me twice and neither time made any sense.
Maybe you need more time outside or something.
The original fact still stands that LinkedIn isn't a good measure of company size, and even if it was, it doesn't mean anything to the average user.
This is like A Beautiful Mind sad, but eating glue edition.
Jesus you said:
So you think you're a manager running Sony's 3rd parties???
This is mental illness.
I was laughing at first, but now this is just really really sad.
You're not a journalist, this isn't investigative anything.
There's a news drought and you're REALLY TRYING HARD to dig up a "w" for your brand for no reason.
There's no value in the numbers you've found as they're not an indicator of the whole, merely those that have chosen to use LinkedIn, you'd need to do ACTUAL investigative work and find out the percentage of workers in Sony game studios that use LinkedIn. There's just too much missing here for this to have any value at all.
You don't understand statistics, and it's obvious.
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