The Seattle PI reports that Big Fish Games, maker of casual and free games, has laid off a small chunk of their employees in a series of grab-your-keys-and-jacket-then-get-the-hell-out firings. While the story is mildly interesting, the stream of bile and accusations that have boiled up in the comments are fascinating.

It looks like former and current employees are essentially beating each other up in the comments. Some examples:

Let's see, they let go the following skills (the limited number of ones I have heard about so far):

Marketing

VP of Marketing (guess they no longer say that marketing is their core competency)
Director of Marketing (again, marketing seems not to be one of their core focuses)
Marketing Research Specialist (who needs focus groups, usability studies and research)
Director of Creative Services (no marketing brochures, postcards, animations or other materials needed)
Copy Writer/Editor (guess they're thinking Word's grammar check makes for a good editor)

Information Technology

VP of Information Technology (do they plan on crossing their fingers and hope all the systems work?)
Windows Systems Administrator (Funny, I didn't hear them talk about switching their operational corporate network to Linux. One of the best bits of all is the only person left to replace the Windows systems administrator, even though the replacement person was learning a great deal and worked very hard, was stuffing tacos a year ago.)

Game Development and Management

Product Manager for Multiplayer Games (hmm, what will be happening to their online game play site?)
Game Programmer (gee, I thought they made and sold games)
Game Tester (I guess quality control is no longer one of their focuses)

Web and Database Development

Program Manager/Internationalization Specialist (maybe their sites in German and Japanese are no longer a focus)
Program Manager/Database Warehouse Architect (I guess analysis of customers and financial reporting is no longer a focus)
HTML and PHP Developer (funny, I thought they still ran several Web sites)
Database Developer (This person was a critical developer on the "My Big Fish Games" project into which basket Big Fish seems to be putting all of their eggs. Considering the project has a long way to go (according to the Wall Street Journal article) how can they explain letting go of a developer critical to their most critical project?)
Art Director (This person was the creative director for the "My Big Fish Games" project, I guess they plan on keeping everything just as is and not expanding the site)

What do all of these people have in common? None were poker buddies of the CEO - a very select group indeed - in fact there was another developer (who was older of course) on the chopping block and one of the poker buddies successfully lobbied to keep the developer around. Some of the poker buddies had even offenses the rest of us would probably get fired over, such as staging a strike and walking out when one of their friends was fired for performance reasons. Yet the poker buddies were untouchable. Interesting indeed.

and

It is interesting the length a spiteful ex-employee will go to to try to smear a company that made some hard decisions that I for one as a current employee am very happy about the change. In spite of the comment below, ony 3 or 4 of the 15 were over 40, and the demographics of those let go seem pretty representative of those that were not. I have only known of 2 people in the past 4 years that have quit the company...a 0% turnover is not indicative of a bad company culture but quite the opposite. The energy level of the company is now alive and I feel it was a great move to reposition the company. We are growing at an incredible rate and the management are very good at the hard decisions that need to be made to stay ahead of all the competitors in this space. We are still a company of 125 and my group alone has 8 active job openings.

And my personal favorite, a Gilliga's Island-themed song about the firings inspired by the fact that the company took everyone on a big cruise to celebrate the company's success right before the bloodlettings.

BFG Theme Song

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a fateful group.
That started from a Seattle port,
aboard the Argosy ship.
The Pres was a mighty hatchet man,
the Owner brave and sure.
Their associates all set sail that day,
for a three hour tour, a three hour tour.........
The weather never got too rough,
but the tiny ship was tossed,
when the owner preached upon the bow,
he knew who would be lost; he knew who would be lost.
The axe did swing and heads did roll at BFG.com,
from the VP of Marketing, the Director too,
the Community Manager, but not his Wife,
the creative leads the VP of IT and the rest,
proving all the Big Fish lies.

Brian Crecente

Big Fish Scales Down Some Staff, Hooks Others [John Cook's Venture Blog]