(Photo : Don't Nod / Screenshot taken from Steam)
Don't Nod developers who worked on the original Life is Strange game are going on strike on Nov. 8, 2024, ahead of impending layoffs at the studio.
The development comes following news last month where the studio announced its redundancy plan for its structure. The planned strike was revealed by Le Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses de Jeu Vidéo (STJV), a video games workers union.
Planned Developers' Strike
The union last week called for a strike following the 69 jobs at the studio that were reportedly at risk of being made redundant. The CEO of Don't Nod, Oskar Guilbert, explained that a new initiative was designed for a "reorganization project."
This was supposed to make sure that the company continues to succeed in the video games industry in the long term. The strategy was also designed to address the studio's "deteriorating" financial results.
Guilbert said that the company's half-year results for this year reflect the economic underperformance of the studio's latest game releases. This came despite positive ratings on Metacritic, according to Game Spot.
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The picket line for the upcoming strike is set to be held next to Don't Nod's headquarters located in Paris, France. STJV also pointed out workers' demands and countered the studio's statement about the reason that staff members were joining the picket line and how it could be canceled.
The statement noted that the workers' demand is that the management of Don't Nod should immediately give up its irresponsible and unfair plan to lay off employees. They also said that the workers should have an actual say in decision-making within the company.
Failures by Leadership
Another major demand that the union has for Don't Nod is that CEO Guilbert should be physically present at the negotiations. The studio's employees are calling out for the studio to justify the recently revealed redundancy plan, Games Industry said.
The open letter said that as workers in the company, they know that the failures of the studio were due to a "succession of negligent acts and bad decisions from leadership." It added that they had already warned the higher-ups about the failures for years now but no one listened.
The workers said that they are now the ones paying the price for failures that were not their own. They also accused Don't Nod leadership of "short-term thinking" and saying that they had "delusions of grandeur."
These allegedly led to them being influenced to over-invest in various projects that did not return their funding. The workers said that they want to save the studio but not at the price of unjustified redundancies or a deteriorated working environment, according to Eurogamer.
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