[Hippo]

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12393&Itemid=55

Volition confirms 86 let go

THQ announced that 86 employees out of 102 in the developer Volition’s Quality Assurance Department were notified that they will be laid off. The announcement comes as little surprise, since the company is looking for ways to reduce cost and overhead in a difficult economy.

Volition, which is most well known for the Saints Row franchise, will have its titles tested by THQ’s centralized Quality Assurance Department. A small number of Quality Assurance employees will be retained at Volition to work with the THQ Quality Assurance teams at THQ corporate.

What is a bit of a surprise is that THQ has gone to great lengths to let it be known that these cuts are not part of the staff reductions that the company recently spoke about in their last earnings call. THQ said that employees affected by the layoff will receive outplacement assistance and also have the chance to find work at other openings within the company.

Currently, Volition is working on the sequel to Red Faction called Red Faction: Guerrilla as well as the FreeSpace and Summoner franchises. The company also is working on the development of a game-based The Punisher comic book series.

THQ continues to deny suggestions that the company could face a fate similar to Midway as losses continue to mount. The company, however, has reduced its employee count by 24 percent, which equals almost 600 members of its total workforce.

tl;dr?:

Volition is working on the sequel to Red Faction called Red Faction: Guerrilla as well as the FreeSpace and Summoner franchises

[Pred the Penguin]

I thought FS2 didn't make enough money to continue the series.

[blackhole]

PR stunt?

[General Battuta]

The layoffs are part of normal development cycles, I think.

[Locutus of Borg]

I sincerely hope they don't make another Freespace, not unless they make it backwards compatible

[Nuclear1]

Sequel to FS2?

..Wow?

[Dilmah G]

Any other sites posted similar info? Could be a misprint or an assumption

[Galemp]

The layoffs were in the Quality Assurance (testing) department, which was being consolidated with the rest of THQ. The dev team is still there.

[Hippo]

The layoffs were in the Quality Assurance (testing) department

I feel like EA laid off their QA department long before any economic crisis

[Rick James]

This brings up mixed feelings in me.

On the one hand, it would finally be nice to have some chuffing closure on the whole mystery of the Shivans thing. Volition has stated that the Shivans are part of a "bigger problem". I'd sure like to know what "problem" that is.

But...on the other hand, given that the average game these days is influenced by corporate analyst groups and subcommittees who "forecast" what would be good to put into a game, rather than what actual gamers want, the end result tends to be at the best tepid, and at the worst just boring and stupidly easy (I'm looking at you, FEAR 2).

Then again, this IS Volition we're talking about here, and I personally thought that Saints Row 2 was awesome. It was Grand Theft Auto 4 without the smarmy bastard cousin calling you every five minutes and going "NEEEEEEKO MY COUSIN I NEED U DO JOB FOR ME". Hopefully, a new Freespace title will be similarly unrestrained.

I wouldn't put money on V calling it "Freespace 3", though. People are tired enough of sequels and sticking a "3" at the end would probably turn off everyone not familiar with the series.

[blackhole]

We should get them to just cough up the rest of the storyline and leave it at that.

[Dilmah G]

We should get them to just cough up the rest of the storyline and leave it at that.

That's actually a good idea. Then let Blaise Russell decipher and FRED it

[Hades]

The pineapple in slope-intercept form.

Pretty cool, especially if it's real.

[tinfoil]

why the damn pineapple?

[BloodEagle]

why the damn pineapple?

Wink, wink! Nudge, nudge! Say no more!

[IceFire]

We should get them to just cough up the rest of the storyline and leave it at that.

Doesn't exist...there wasn't REALLY a grand plan...just some loose notes.  We might be able to get them to cough those up

[GTSVA]

Or maybe they hid it all from us. Maybe 'it' was created all along!!!!!!!!!!1111oeoneoneoneoene

[Dilmah G]

We should get them to just cough up the rest of the storyline and leave it at that.

Doesn't exist...there wasn't REALLY a grand plan...just some loose notes.  We might be able to get them to cough those up

Bloody hope they do

[redsniper]

I think this is just a problem of verb tenses. The article also mentions them working on Summoner and Punisher games, which I doubt they're making sequels to, so I think that should be read as a list of games they've worked on not that they are working on.

[ShadowGorrath]

Wait, why do you think that you'd do a better job at making a FS3, than Volition could?

I actually hope that the article is correct.