Rumor: Rockstar New England's QA department laid off

by Griffin McElroy { Jun 24th 2009 at 10:30AM }

News that our fellow gaming industry professionals have been stripped of their employment is always a bad thing -- even when said professionals work for a studio that we ... kind of ... forgot about. Hey, it's not our fault. Do a quick search for "Rockstar New England," and the only result is a post about the studio's origins published April 2008. They've reportedly been working on an unannounced project since then -- but then again, who isn't these days?

According to Kotaku, Rockstar New England (formerly Mad Doc Software) just axed about 10 percent of its staff -- including the entire quality assurance department. Unnamed sources reported Rockstar is cutting QA across the board in favor of having a single QA studio -- a fact that doesn't bode well for the non-bugginess of Grand Theft Auto V. Strangely enough, Rockstar New England's site says the studio is hiring for a few programming and designing positions. Rarely do gaming studios have such Wal-Mart-esque turnover.

We've contacted Rockstar to find out if Kotaku's sources were accurate.

Tags: firing, layoffs, mad-doc-software, qa, quality-assurance, rockstar, rockstar-new-england

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Temidien @ Jun 24th 2009 10:32AM

*In before trolls flame about the post coming from Kotaku*

Sad indeed, I hate to see ANY developer get laid off.

United States of Generica @ Jun 24th 2009 1:37PM

QA are not developers. Quality Assurance are testers and bug finders.

No matter what industry -- banking, healthcare, travel, government, etc. -- it is always the QA guys that get fired first in technology team downsizing.

Every time.

spmbx @ Jun 24th 2009 11:00AM

What exactly is so strange about laying people off and still having job openings? Its not like you can just have the QA people do programming or arts you know, it actually does require skills they might not have.

LaughingTarget @ Jun 24th 2009 11:02AM

The rumor would make sense. When gamers these days are buying buggy games and not complaining about it, why would they want to bother with a QA department?

R-Tug @ Jun 24th 2009 11:47AM

The QA departments of Rockstar in general appear to be laid of with Max Payne 3 being set in Brazil, voice actor changed, and bald. Cause ya know, that is totally Max Payne.

refinedsugar @ Jun 24th 2009 11:56AM

Yeah, maybe they could outsource MP3 to Mad Doc Software too because they have a great track record. I mean, that's why Rockstar bought them, brought them in-house and renamed them, right? Because they're great? Right? lol.

Alasdair @ Jun 24th 2009 12:18PM

"a fact that doesn't bode well for the non-bugginess of Grand Theft Auto V"

GTA V is out already?? and nobody told us?? how could this happen?!?

Roddie @ Jun 24th 2009 2:23PM

You do know what bode means, right?

LegendaryRedass @ Jun 24th 2009 12:41PM

Are you sure it was Rockstars QA team that was laid off and not Epics? Because that's old news.

ignfan69 @ Jun 24th 2009 12:42PM

After Bully on the 360 it's pretty obvious that Rockstar needs much less QA

Nook @ Jun 24th 2009 12:45PM

while many others will laud r* games as the new god, i have a very different experience with the company. i find all their products to be shit, built of poor quality using the downward decline in society to sell games.

and now they are cutting QA...yeah...sounds BRILLIANT to me.

Grammar freak @ Jun 24th 2009 1:56PM

Am I the only one who remembers mad doc's Star Trek: Armada? It was one of the best trek games ever, an RTS in post-DS9 Alpha Quadrant, but quite buggy. I didn't play it but I heard Armada 2 was even buggier.