Sega West, the branch of Sega Sammy Holdings that includes Europe and North America, had downsized its San Francisco office by 37 and London office by 36.

According to IndustryGamers, that is a 12 percent reduction in Sega West’s numbers (15 percent reduction in North America and 10 percent in Europe).

While the London office will continue developing the usual games, the San Francisco office has been re-purposed as the Digital Division. this move seems sudden to us but it’s been in the works for many months…

Three more game-relate print pubs have crumbled under the force of an economic recession and inexpensive online competition.

Fusion Publishing recently filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, essentially shutting down Geek Monthly Magazine, Play Magazine and Girls of Gaming.

The company has not been responding to inquiries from fans, subscribers and former writers so most of the news about the publications being shuttered comes from former writers. I can confirm from online contact with Geek‘s former Editor, Jeff Bond, that Geek has officially been shut down.

Marroni Electronic Entertainment and NightIrion are taking a humorous look at the current United States economic issues with iBailout, a Pac-Man like game on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Players run around the screen and try to eat up as much of the government’s bailout cash as possible. Chasing players around are angry mobs of U.S. taxpayers.

According to an industry census report by Game Developer Research, despite the recession there were more people employed in the videogame industry in 2009 than in 2008.

That’s due to some explosive growth in the Canadian game industry, which experienced a 30 percent increase in the number of employees between 2008 and 2009 (an estimated 9,500 in 2008 blossomed to more than 12,500 in 2009). Government subsidies have helped new studios spring up all over Canada, particularly in Montreal and Ontario.

Also, the growing surge in casual gaming led to new jobs with companies including Zynga and Popcap.

What? Video game sales are down? That hasn’t stopped Texas-based GameStop from posting big profits.

The Dallas Morning News reports that the retailer pulled in $1.83 billion for the quarter ending October 31, 2009. That was an 8.3% increase over the same period in 2008.

Those are impressive numbers in a 2009 that has been down overall for the game industry. The DMN article also notes that GameStop is preparing for digital downloads to become a bigger portion of overall game sales, hiring two executives to work on that issue and improve online sales.

With the global economy going through hard times, most markets have been affected and unfortunately video games are not the exception. Sales are falling behind this year compared to 2008 and the holiday season is sure to bring a fierce price battle amongst the main retailers.

Not even the big companies are being spared from the effects of the economy. Video game giant Electronic Arts has decided to close Pandemic Studios, one of its recently acquired studios. This decision was part of a plan to cut 1,500 jobs in an effort to restructure the company.

Even though Nintendo dropped the suggested retail price of the Wii system to $199.99, that doesn’t mean you can’t get it for less.

Sam’s Club today (October 19, 2009) just sent out an email circular that is promoting the system for $194.88 (US), a smidge less than the asking price. The sale page is, in usual retail fashion, promoting it as a much bigger price drop, stating “Now only $198.88. Was $244.86.”

2D Boy is taking a different approach to celebrating World of Goo’s first birthday. Instead of receiving tons of presents, 2D Boy decided to give us World of Goo for a discount of our choosing.

This means we can pay whatever we want for World of Goo. We can theoretically pay anything from $0.01 to $1 trillion for this game. This deal will continue until October 19, 2009.

Contrary to what we were reporting this time a year or so ago, the game industry is not recession proof. Video games just took their biggest monthly sales drop in nearly a decade. Even GameStop, a company that has been able to do no wrong financially, is feeling it.

In an economy where folks are losing their houses, cars and 401Ks, there is no bigger albatross in the gaming industry than the PlayStation 3. Launching with a hefty $600 price tag, the PS3 has more in common with GMC’s Hummer vehicle than it does with the PS2. Both the gas-guzzling SUV and the overpriced game machine are symbols of an excess most of society can’t afford right now. Looking back, it’s easy to understand Sony’s thought process. Their last generation competitors – weren’t competitors. If it weren’t for the Halo series, the Xbox would have been the Nintendo GameCube. And the Nintendo GameCube was the Nintendo GameCube. I want to make more fun of Nintendo for its effort last gen. But since they re-released the GameCube with a fancy new motion controller and are now the biggest success story in gaming, it looks as if the joke is on the rest of us.

Anyone who says that games have no potential to comment on serious social/cultural/financial issues has clearly never had the pleasure of playing Trillion Dollar Bailout, one of the new (and one of the most hilarious/interesting) free games available at Addicting Games. The title, which blatantly rips on the current economy-in-the-toilet situation and allows players to smack Wall Street fat cats while doling out cash to innocent folks, allows players to vent their obvious frustrations.