Relic is in trouble - 121 employees fired

maybe i am overthinking now but coh3 does remind me of a EA sport game.

tiny incremental gameplay updates, reuse many assets and gameplay designs, and release new content from it.

4vs4 and boring meta... I have a bad news for you

CoH 2 might have a "boring meta", but at least you have options within that meta. Like I don't always have to pick conscripts or penals in CoH 2, or I can get more MGs or whatever. Plus, there's map variety. There's only so fuckin long I can take bringing double MGs and mortars vs panzergren and jaeger blobs on the same.fuckin.map.over.and.over.and.over.again.

Look down on us, 4vs4 scrubs, all you want, but the game is fun, it has its unique rhythm, diverse amount of usable units/commands, and the balance was fine.

Some low-hanging garbage is there in 4vs4, but once you have the "counter long range arty" commanders in your pocket, it becomes a fun game where people bring out all the dumb shit that is either not viable in small modes, or simply takes far too long to get to the field.

All we wanted was some modernization, and the new-life in the form of live-service content delivery...

Mega +1

I posted this on the official Discord May 15th talking about how important it is for Relic to address the community more often:

"Seriously, your jobs are on the line and you sit in your ivory towers watching the peons eat the last grain and leave the town? Cant spare 15 minutes a week".


Then today I posted:

"121 people layed off. Man I wish I was wrong more often. It is a curse."


I keep thinking that working at Relic must be fun and laid back. But if it is so good there, why doesn't someone stand up and say "Hey guys, Coh3 is going to fail if we keep doing this. Maybe we should do this?". People are either too afraid to do it or management is too dumb to accept good ideas. Either way it doesn't sound like a good place to work.

Its like being a bartender on a train watching the conductor drive the train off a bridge and saying nothing.

ok, found this:
https://rocketreach.co/relic-entertainment-profile_b5c49e94f42e0dc4#:~:text=417%20people%20are%20employed%20at%20Relic%20Entertainment.

so it is like 25% off?
that is tough, but not the end of the world........

I didn't realize Relic employed that many people, thought it was 200 tops. So this really isn't a catastrophic blow. Game studios put most of their team on the next game while a much smaller chunk does post launch support for the released titles, so what I'm guessing actually happened is this: Sega massively expanded Relic for the purposes of AoE4 and then kept them around to work on COH3. Then they remembered the last DoW game flopped extremely hard and realizing Relics only viable IP for the time being is CoH, they didn't need so many people around. Seems more like Relic ins't rushing towards developing a new IP rather than a doomsday scenario.

I posted this on the official Discord May 15th talking about how important it is for Relic to address the community more often:

"Seriously, your jobs are on the line and you sit in your ivory towers watching the peons eat the last grain and leave the town? Cant spare 15 minutes a week".


Then today I posted:

"121 people layed off. Man I wish I was wrong more often. It is a curse."


I keep thinking that working at Relic must be fun and laid back. But if it is so good there, why doesn't someone stand up and say "Hey guys, Coh3 is going to fail if we keep doing this. Maybe we should do this?". People are either too afraid to do it or management is too dumb to accept good ideas. Either way it doesn't sound like a good place to work.

Its like being a bartender on a train watching the conductor drive the train off a bridge and saying nothing.

This is all easier said than done. I've worked at a couple companies that were dysfunctional. When the management thinks they're doing a great job but are not, you're really better off saying nothing, doing your assignments as best you can, and looking for a job while watching the managers mismanage the company into oblivion.

Relic still has 300 or so employees. That still seems like an awful lot for maintenance releases. If pushing updates through Steam is as easy as it looks, I'd bet my PMP certification that a competent project manager could get the game fixed in a couple months with about 1/4 of those 300 employees.

Relic still has 300 or so employees. That still seems like an awful lot for maintenance releases. If pushing updates through Steam is as easy as it looks, I'd bet my PMP certification that a competent project manager could get the game fixed in a couple months with about 1/4 of those 300 employees.

CoH3 is not the sole exclusive active relic game.
There is AoE4 and SM2 development too and these people are not doing all 3 projects at once, this much I can assure you, they have separate teams. For all we know, CoH3 team could be 10 guys now.

CoH3 is not the sole exclusive active relic game.
There is AoE4 and SM2 development too and these people are not doing all 3 projects at once, this much I can assure you, they have separate teams. For all we know, CoH3 team could be 10 guys now.

Relic and Sega aren't responsible for SM2.

It is all lost. You cannot "review your priorities" out of this situation.

The all too familiar formula:
1. New unfinished game, Beta with many problems.
2. Release it anyway, people hate it, population drops to unsustainable levels
3. Statement "We missed the mark", but we are in for the long haul, yet not a single obligation, just vague promises and roadmaps
4. 6-12 months later "Incredibly difficult decision to move on"

The June/July content of this game has been made prior to layoffs. 3 maps and some battlegroups.

Relic and Sega aren't responsible for SM2.

It is all lost. You cannot "review your priorities" out of this situation.

The all too familiar formula:
1. New unfinished game, Beta with many problems.
2. Release it anyway, people hate it, population drops to unsustainable levels
3. Statement "We missed the mark", but we are in for the long haul, yet not a single obligation, just vague promises and roadmaps
4. 6-12 months later "Incredibly difficult decision to move on"

The June/July content of this game has been made prior to layoffs. 3 maps and some battlegroups.

Yeah the state of modern gaming...

its sega dude plenty of issues, maybe this will be the final nail on coh franchise , or sell it to microsoft or playstation ! I hope you don't have shares on sega ,pity did haved my best moments play on sega console and nintendo 64 !

its sega dude plenty of issues, maybe this will be the final nail on coh franchise , or sell it to microsoft or playstation ! I hope you don't have shares on sega ,pity did haved my best moments play on sega console and nintendo 64 !

Sega is doing well, their other games are successful enough to offset the Relic loses. If you bought Sega shares two years ago, you have doubled your money today. (it is fluctuating but you are definitely in the green).

Relic failed with DOW3, AOE4 was a successful contract work but it is not a revenue stream like self-published titles would be. Now they failed again with COH3, and it is the correct business decision to downsize.

Layoffs ensure you will no longer bleed as much money in this branch, but it also ensures that CoH future is... sacrificed to the capitalism Hurts... but these are some of the most expensive salaries in Sega's studios, Japanese video game salaries don't even reach half the Canadian ones.

If the money is reinvested into Persona 6 or Blue Protocol, I am alright.

Sega is doing well, their other games are successful enough to offset the Relic loses. If you bought Sega shares two years ago, you have doubled your money today. (it is fluctuating but you are definitely in the green).

Yes. Investing in a company trading OTC is a great idea. Anymore top notch investment advice, Fantoschmuck?

Yes. Investing in a company trading OTC is a great idea. Anymore top notch investment advice, Fantoschmuck?

Is there a financial advice in the message? No, there isn't. It is a statement on the value of the company's stocks.

But I have an advice for you, same advice as before. Sign up for the therapy sessions because you are either a sad troll, or you seriously need help to unravel the way you view the world, and the way you always try to insult others rather than making any logical arguments. It will help you in life. Some classes on reading comprehension wouldn't hurt either, because you respond to the message with statement that have nothing to do with the message.

Sega is doing well, their other games are successful enough to offset the Relic loses. If you bought Sega shares two years ago, you have doubled your money today. (it is fluctuating but you are definitely in the green).

That`s pretty terrible if you factor in inflation.

That`s pretty terrible if you factor in inflation.

Trend is still upwards.
They fell when they went out of console manufacturing market.

Trend is still upwards.
They fell when they went out of console manufacturing market.

Do you know if sega made a profit on coh3?

Could be worse. At least they haven't gone bankrupt yet, like THQ before CoH2's release.

Do you know if sega made a profit on coh3?

They probably did.
Its the retention they have failed with due to obvious reasons and anyone who played the game will realize easily how it was made on a smaller budget then CoH2 was given how scope of everything but factions themselves being very much diminished.

They probably did.
Its the retention they have failed with due to obvious reasons and anyone who played the game will realize easily how it was made on a smaller budget then CoH2 was given how scope of everything but factions themselves being very much diminished.

Not so sure about that...

The stock for starters, is traded OTC (over the counter) in the US markets. This means they are not listed on traditional exchanges like the NASDAQ. Why would a company do that? In order to be listed on US exchanges your company would be subject to the forensic accounting committee. I'll let you connect the dots. I think its pretty well known that SEGA has has financial issues internally and externally.

Just to crunch some rough numbers on profitability.

VG Insights says about 515,000 copies sold. (https://vginsights.com/game/1677280)

Income:
515k x $60.00 = 31M gross (PC sales)
Xbox revenue: ??
Advertising Partnerships: ??

Expenses:
Payroll: Average 350 employees (how many are full time, part time, independent contractors)
Let's say 200 of them are salaried. (50k/employee avg. including benefits) Roughly 10m/year * 3 years of development = 30M.
Advertising: 3M budget?
Other expenses: taxes, insurance, food, water, heat, light, etc over 3 years. ???
Profit Sharing: ???

I would lean towards losing money. I think if you combine that with the recent changes to who is leading development forward, it screams ESG emergency loan to me. Which suggests the company is/has bleed money and is at critical stages of survival.

Income:
515k x $60.00 = 31M gross (PC sales)
Xbox revenue: ??
Advertising Partnerships: ??

Expenses:
Payroll: Average 350 employees (how many are full time, part time, independent contractors)
Let's say 200 of them are salaried. (50k/employee avg. including benefits) Roughly 10m/year * 3 years of development = 30M.
Advertising: 3M budget?
Other expenses: taxes, insurance, food, water, heat, light, etc over 3 years. ???
Profit Sharing: ???

The simplifications are fair. I'd just like to add that assuming all of the sales went through Steam (some where hardware bundles though, I slightly doubt Relic got their 40$ for that), Steam usually takes a 30% share, which would bring the revenue down to ~22 million. Which in turn is also shared between Relic and Sega.

On the expenses side, not all 350 employees might have been assigned to CoH3 development or not been employed for all of the last 3 years.

Even if we take the highest estimate on steamdb, which is 942,5k owners, this is 56,55 million in revenue and ~39,5 million for Relic/Sega. This could - maybe - be a minor surplus. By firing a third of their employees, Relic themselves basically said that they didn't make enough cash to sustain their current size.