Early this month, Team17, a British video game developer and publisher headquartered in Wakefield, England, announced a restructuring drive. Eurogamer first reported that the department that would be impacted the most was the internal Quality Assurance team. Also expected to exit the company was Michael Pattison, the company’s CEO.
It is projected that around 50 roles will be axed from the company during the restructuring. From what I learned, the company is planning to outsource the QA role instead of doing it internally. A proposed team structure document shared with the staff members on October 2 showed that most of the roles that will be affected are the junior QA analysts.
Earlier this year, Team17 also laid off some employees in the internal development teams. At that time, staff were told that further layoffs were unlikely. What I was unable to determine is whether this would be the last redundancy in the company or whether more will happen in the near future.
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In 2022, Eurogamer published a report on Team17. In the report, staff of the company voiced their displeasure with different management failures, working conditions, and remuneration.
After the report was published, Team17 promised several positive changes including the review of employees’ pay. I don’t want to believe that the sweeping restructuring is a punitive action against the employees for voicing out their displeasure.
Team17 will begin the restructuring after consultation
The staff members who would be affected by the restructuring were informed through an emergency town hall meeting on October 2. Team17 is now consulting on the changes and the process is expected to be concluded in November. Team17 confirmed the commencement of the restructuring on October 2.
“In response to the reports concerning the departure of Michael Pattison from Team17, we can confirm we have amicably parted ways with Michael,” said the company’s spokesperson to Eurogamer. “We can also confirm that we have sadly entered into a period of consultation today within Team17 Digital, with Astragon and Storytoys remaining unaffected by the restructuring plans.”
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Pattison joined Team17 in October 2021 after working at PlayStation for over 8 years. His sudden departure is coming just 2 years after joining the company. He has previously worked in other major companies in the game industry including Capcom and THQ.
When the news of Team17’s planned restructuring first made headlines, I wasn’t sure if the layoffs would affect only the QA team or if cuts were also expected to happen across other departments. However, Eurogamer later shared an update that confirmed the layoffs would affect other parts of the business.
According to sources close to the company, significant job losses were expected in the developer’s usability team. Also expected to see significant job cuts are the studio’s IT, customer service, HR, marketing, and programming departments.
At the time of this publication, the Eurogamer report claims Pattison has already left Team17. However, I checked his LinkedIn profile and it has not been updated. Some of the staff in the company have already updated their LinkedIn profile to show they are open to work.
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It appears the shake-up at Team17 will reverberate to the top. Debbie Bestwick who has been the company’s CEO since 2018 (according to the details I found on her LinkedIn Page) announced that she would be stepping down at the end of 2023. She is expected to be replaced by Steve Bell.
Interestingly, Team17 is not doing badly financially. In September, the company announced that its sales were up by 31% in the first half of 2023 year-over-year. Also, the company’s gross profit was up 18% year-over-year.
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