Vivendi axes game jobs

The video game arm of troubled media giant Vivendi Universal will lay off about 350 North American workers as part of a restructuring, the company announced Monday. Vivendi did not give details of where the cuts would be concentrated except to say that Blizzard Entertainment, producer of popular titles such as the "Warcraft" franchise, would not be affected.

"This constitutes another important step in our turnaround plan aimed to better position the company for growth," VU Games CEO Bruce Hack said in a statement. Vivendi has worked up numerous strategies over the past few years to whittle down its $17 billion debt load but has resisted calls to sell its game division.

[raynettech]

Vivendi's Layoffs are more of a ruse

It seems Vivendi is at it again. The investors have started to get cranky again so it is time to lay off another round of people to appease them. Unfortunately the investors have been buying it. Having worked at a division of Vivendi Universal Games that was shut down last year, I got to see their restructuring process first hand. What amazed me most, other than their closing of a division that consistently produced award winning titles, is that there seemed no plan to the whole thing. While I appreciated the very generous severance package, nobody could really explain how this would be for the good of the company as a whole. Calling it a "restructuring plan" sounds great on paper, but the key word "plan" seems to be missing from Vivendi's true intents. I think the time has come that they need to commit to a plan. They need to start committing resources to build up their gaming division or just sell the whole thing off. This planless limping along just doesn't cut it and is unfair for employees who fear every day may be their last workday.

[Jeff Putz]

Not sold?

That's weird... I didn't realize that division wasn't sold to NBC with the theme parks and studio. Why are they retaining the Universal name at all?