Former Sony CEO Chris Deering tells laid-off workers: ‘Go to sea for a year or drive Uber’

Deering, who headed Sony’s PlayStation business in Europe from 1995 to 2005, has compared the drastic cuts in the video games industry to “a pandemic”, downplaying the role of corporate greed and offering controversial advice to affected workers.

“You’re going to have to do a few, figure out how to get through it, drive a Uber or whatever,” he said on My Perfect Dashboard Newsletter. “Find a cheap place to live and go to the beach for a year.”

More than 20,000 gaming industry workers have been laid off since 2023

From 2023, approx. 645,000 Tech workers have been laid off—more than 20,000 of them in the video game industry, which has been hit hard recently.

This year alone, as of May, there have been more than 10,000 employees playing games job losses, surpassing the total number of layoffs across the industry for all of 2023.

Sony fired 900 PlayStation employees (about 8% of its workforce) in February and closed its London Studio.

Other game developers, including Microsoft And Unitealso downsized its studio this year, cutting nearly 4,000 jobs at the start of the year.

At the time, Sony CEO Jim Ryan said the cost-cutting measures were to “streamline our resources.”

Meanwhile, Unity’s interim CEO Jim Whitehurst explained that the company is “reducing the number of things we do to focus on our core business and drive our long-term success and profitability,” in a internal memo

Still, Deering said, “I don’t think it’s fair to say the layoffs were motivated by greed.”

“I always try to minimize the rate at which I add staff because I always know there will be a cycle,” he added, before noting that, “if the money doesn’t come from the consumer in the last game, it’s hard to justify spending money in the next game.”

But don’t spend too much time at home on the beach.

Deering is an industry veteran, having worked at Atari before joining Sony and playing a key role in the launch of the company’s first consoles, the PlayStation and PlayStation 2.

He then became president of Codemasters, a racing game company, until 2010 and is currently an advisor to Cudo Ventures, a cryptocurrency mining software company.

Despite the current state of the gaming industry, Deering assures that he is “optimistic about the future… even for those who have just been laid off.”

“I think it can be very painful for managers, but I don’t think having skills in this area should mean a lifetime of poverty or limitation,” he added. “It’s still where the action is.”

“These things sometimes bounce back a lot quicker than you think when things are so volatile.”

That’s why, after advising laid-off workers to wait out the current recession on the beach or as an Uber driver, Deering warned them not to stay out of work for too long.

“Keep your eyes on the news,” he concluded. “Keep your eyes on it, because once you get off the train, things are going to get a lot harder.”

Not everyone in the games industry agrees with Deering’s comments. The IWGB’s games division tweeted that they had pointed out the need to form a union: “Without it, we are left with ‘letting them eat cake,'” the union wrote.

22,000 game developers laid off. Chris Deering’s response: “Go to the beach, drive an Uber.”

With a strong union, we can achieve what we deserve – work-life balance and job security.

Without it, we are left with “letting them eat cake.”

Join our union today: https://t.co/Xm08SjCMBI https://t.co/bg43JbySrs

— IWGB Game Staff (@IWGB_GW) September 10, 2024

Luck Sony, Deering and Cudo Ventures have been contacted for comment.