Bad news for Mad Catz the folks behind last Fall’s Rock Band 4 peripherals as well as the Heavy Precision Control System which was aimed at the hardcore Farming Simulator crowd. President / CEO Darren Ridchardson resigned ahead of the company reporting a profit of $1.2million for the last quarter of 2014.
This quarter was reportedly one of the best that the company has seen with sales jumping 114% over the previous year. Despite these sales increases and profits the new board has decided to layoff 37% of their total worldwide work force amidst the board restructuring. This massive reduction in workers will cost the company a $3 million “restructuring charge”.
The situation at Mad Catz perfectly encapsulates what is wrong with AAA publishers, despite making more money than their initial costs for new products like Rock Band 4 those steering the company have decided that because the game had a lower sell-through rate than initially expected reducing their workforce is the only recourse. That’s bigtime gaming in 2016 folks, massive corporations can generate one of their biggest quarters in their history and then fire more than a quarter of their workforce as if it was nothing. How is this sustainable. again?
Regarding todays developments new CEO Karen McGinnis had this to say:
“These changes will allow us to operate more effectively and help create an organization that is more agile, able to pursue growth and regain share in our core markets by simplifying our processes and reducing our operating costs, thus increasing our competitiveness and profitability without compromising the quality of our product offering. This realignment of our resources will also enable us to better support strategic initiatives that will make our product slate more competitive, help us gain added consumer interest, and create sustainable shareholder value.”
[Source]