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Sega of America Lays Off 61 Employees in QA, Localization Departments
posted on by Adriana Hazra
The series of posts stated that the workers' union was "able to more than double the number of saved jobs, and to offer severance to our temp workers."
Sega of America has not made any announcements regarding the layoffs.
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) released the results of its 12th annual "State of the Game Industry Survey" on January 18, which revealed that 35% of game developers surveyed were impacted by layoffs in the last 12 months (meaning either they were laid off, their colleagues were, or other teams or departments were). Layoffs were most prominent in quality assurance (22%), and least prominent in business and finance (2%). The survey was conducted in October 2023. 56% said they are concerned their company could see layoffs in the next 12 months.
AEGIS includes a majority of the office's staff, across different departments: quality assurance, localization, live service, marketing, and product development. This makes AEGIS the first video game union in the U.S. featuring workers across several departments. With over 200 members, it is also the largest multi-department union of organized workers in the games industry.
AEGIS is partnered with Communications Workers of America (CWA) and its Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE). CODE and CWA had alleged in November that Sega was trying to layoff 40% of its union workers by offshoring work.
Sega is known for multiple game franchises, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Yakuza, Crazy Taxi, Jet Grind Radio, Shenmue, and Virtua Fighter.
Source: AEGIS' Twitter account via Siliconera
