by Stacy Jones on May 11, 2011
A little trouble is stirring over at Atari subsidiary Eden Games, developer of the Test Drive Unlimited games. According to a report from Gamasutra, the studio is at the center of a redundancy plan, which will claim the jobs of 51 of its 80 employees. In a statement to Gamasutra, the studio stated that it is initiating a "symbolic day strike" today in response to the layoffs and what it's calling "mismanagement" from its parent company Atari.
Eden games representatives state that they have been cooperative with redundancy plans until now. The statement cites past redundancy and recovery plans that have ended in failure and that it doesn't hold high hopes for the latest plan.
The statement added that redundancy plans have been following one after the other at Atari for 10 years. "Each time the recovery project was beautiful and promising, and ended in a failure. We are skeptical about the proposed project," that statement claimed, without going into further detail about potential projects.
The studio wants to hold negotiations about the redundancy plan to ensure that an Eden Games employee is compensated in the same way as an Atari employee. A representative of Eden Games answered a few questions for Gamasutra in an update, which states that the layoffs are expected to hit in June, leaving 29 out of the 80 employees.
Source: Gamasutra