Electronic Sheep lays off 25%

Well-balanced blog article on Electronic Sheep's layoff of 25% of their workforce, plus other commentary on SL's evolution and economic indicators.

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/12/electric_sheep.html

Apologies if someone else already posted a thread on this news - I did a couple of searches but didn't see it. I haven't been on the forums much this week.

Does this mean CSI Part Deux is off now?

laying off a portion of your workforce can be a healthy situation. Who can argue about trimming fat on the meat?

It also gives opportunities for others now to take what they learned and apply it themselves within the SL community.

They say in the article that the CSI project will go forward.

Interesting article. I guess things move on and maybe people are seeing opportunities to work on new virtual worlds that learn from the mistakes of existing ones. From time to time I have looked at other virtual worlds and none seem to come close to SL, though the Chinese SL lookalike 'Novoking' might do so.

What surprises me in the 15 months since I've been in SL and taken a passing interest in other projects is how little new info gets on the net. The main general virtual worlds info site I've found hasn't been updated for ages.

I did find that Worlds.com, a rather primitive virtual world where I spent about half an hour once, as a clown avatar, is planning a Worlds 2. A very short preview clip of Worlds 2 shows high realism graphics - if it is to be believed, this would be a huge leap from what they offer at present.

I'll have to check out Metapace, as mentioned in the OP's reference article.

I saw that. This is a rare occasion where I actually decided to read something externally about SL. I guess i agree with the assessment basically. The providers got a whole year or so out of pumping up dubious numbers, and generally pimping to the corporates, the bubble has to burst sometime. The writer didn't mention VAT along with Gambling as Ciaran deftly pointed out, but otherwise a good article in my opinion. I didn't even know AOl was in SL, not that it would have mattered if I did.Sl is at a crossroad, unfortunately it seems to hinge more on the area where Linden appears to be most clueless, business implementation. The writer speaks of competition, this may be the best thing. Perhaps it will inspire the Providers to get a plan together and carry it out.

Is it voking yet, or is it novoking at all?

Further to my above post ---- I've just been back to the Novoking website - looked impressive and the video showed good animation. So I signed up for a free account (as ConiferDada) and my verification e-mail failed to arrive. I also tried to download the platform but it said download time was 19 hours so I came back here!

I'm not sure I'd call it "balanced". They interviewed exactly one person, and then filled the rest of the article with speculation.

For what it's worth, I'd suggest that every time anyone reads or hears anything from an ESC executive about "changes in the marketplace" you disregard that and insert the words "changes in ESC's goals" instead. That would make it a lot more accurate. As one commenter after the Information Week article has already stated, the market is still there, still doing what it's always done. ESC has made the decision to go after only a certain part of it. Their decision says nothing about what the other 99.99% of the market is or isn't doing.

Without breaching any confidences, I don't mind saying it's extremely puzzling that ESC decided to boot some of the people it did. One particular artist who got the ax was almost single handedly responsible for landing one of these "multi-million dollar contracts" mentioned in the article for another virtual world. The makers of that world said the reason they chose ESC over all the others who were competing (some of whom were MAJOR video game developers with longstanding relationships with the company in question) was specifically because of the quality of the artwork, no other reason. Yet that artist was let go. How does that make any sense at all?

I myself was recently tasked with exploring the content creation processes for two other very popular virtual worlds. Had I been able to deliver my report on those worlds, ESC would now have some nice manuals for how those worlds work. I think users of this forum who know me can pretty well imagine the high quality and thorough level of 'for-dummies'ness that would have been in my tutorials about those processes. Yet I was canned before I even got to finalize the thing, let alone deliver it, and they'll now have to do the same research twice. How does that make any sense either?

Several articles now have claimed that the people who were let go were just SL specialists. Without breaching any confidences, I can atest that that's simply not the case. Many of the artists who were laid off are fully capable of creating highest quality content for any number of 3D and 2D purposes, including any other virtual world you could throw at us. Some of the others who were booted had had client service related roles. These people could have done an outstanding job in steering existing clients towards all kinds of projects in other worlds besides SL. So does that particular claim make any sense either?

Whatever is really going on behind ESC's decision making process, only the board members know for sure. I don't blame them for trying to put the most positive spin on it possible. I'd just encourage everyone not to assume the whole truth is being told is all. I doubt there's anything deliberately untrue (I still do respect the individual people in ESC's leadership in a great many ways), but half truths seem to abound.

I have my theories about what's really happening. I'm pretty sure I'm right, but out of respect for the people who still do work there, I won't disclose them.

In any case, if you're looking for a "balanced" article try to find one that interviews more than just one person, at the very least. I'm sure more will appear in the coming days and weeks.

I've downsized my land holdings to reduce my tier payments, but that doesn't mean I'm losing interest in SL, i love it just as much as I've always done.

this article is for next year

They're old fashioned electric sheep, not them new fangled electronic ones.

Though I know some people who long for the even older type of acoustic sheep.

And if I am not mistaken, the layoff was 1/3 of the staff -- that's 33%, not 25%; virtualworldsnews.com indicates 22 people were let go.

P2

It's actually in the middle. 22 out of 76 is 29%.

Crazy.

(nice post Chosen)

Well, if they are letting go super-talent...then who knows what's up their sleeves. I guess I can stop sending them applications...

Chosen--off topic--do you know of any other 'larger' content creation houses that might hire a well-rounded CG artist?

Also, I know of no other metaverse that compares to SL in breadth, content creation, freedom, and graphical prowess...are there others getting ready to be released that we might not know?

I've done research on several out there...and there are some cool 'open source' ones that have awesome graphics and physics...but they aren't using the SL model (which is necessary for my interest at least).

The Chinese SL isn't a match for SL either...at least, that's what I gather from watching all the Youtube videos on it.

Where would ESC be going to that is more attractive to them than SL? What other metaverse even compares to SL at the moment? None.

I think it only came to my notice the week you were throwing craps.

Is that the right context? ... I gather WE have a cowpat throwing contest but knowing even less about that, I don't think they quite relate to each other.

"Chosen Few has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her."

i am sorry to hear about your misfortune regarding ESC. i know from your previous posts that you were very loyal to your employer. So, I'm certain they made a big mistake, letting you go. i bet it won't keep you down for long, though. cheers!

Wow. Thank you for your posts here, Chosen, and condolences on your layoff. I'm sure, with your talents, you'll be too busy soon *crosses fingers*.

Most startups I know would call a 29% layoff "devastating". It is hard to believe that ESC had a 29% bloat due to overestimating growth. However, if it were a strategic redirection, usually companies announce that at the same time as the layoff, to avoid having people watching the company think that it is simply running out of money.

/me squints suspiciously at ESC's website. No, no press release there yet ...

Yanno, Chosen, I once went through a similar situation of a client who failed to manage a project budget, discovered they were $75k over budget and made deep cuts in staff - closing an entire satellite office in fact. As it turned out, the company ended up being reimbursed via change order for their overage by their primary client and the cuts hadn't been necessary, they were a knee-jerk reaction by owners who were seeing profits slipping away and decided to cut and run before seeing if there was any way to fix the damage.
And, as fate would have it, they cut their best and brightest - one of whom went on to lead a winning bid on a 4 million dollar contract from that same primary client two years later.

It may suck now, but the cream does rise to the top and brave souls take a set back and then turn it around into a huge comeback elsewhere. Every ending is also a beginning.

Hang in there,

Hugs

If you're taking ESC as the 'cream' of developers, there's also the following thoughts...

... too much cream can make you sick.

... even cream goes rancid after a while.

Broccoli

Chosen and Isablan;
Some crazy management out there. Seen similar in all areas. A lot of knee-jerks

An interesting question--that perhaps contains its own answer: Maybe ESC intends to focus on the most hype-intensive places to ply its wares. And that might not be a bad strategy. SL is maturing, standards for top-quality work are much higher than they were when ESC started and consume more resources to achieve, and frankly, it's probably "old news" to anybody with coin to throw at ESC. So a quick march to mediocrity in talent and a hasty withdrawal to greener pastures for the Sheep. Makes business sense to me.

Actually, you SHOOT Craps by THROWING Dice. But throwing crap is an accurate term, all I got for my effort was shit.

I wish I had ability to hire you Chosen. I thought of asking about your lay off but because we aren't close friends I thought it might be rude.
You've done a lot for community and are quite talented in your own right.
I am certain something even better will show up in your future.

Since most is fat to start with