The news broke yesterday that Sony Online Entertainment laid off 5% of its workforce (41 full time employees).

First of all, my heart goes out to these people. I’ve been through it, many of us have, but I’ve never been through it when the job market is as tragically bad as it is now. It’s a time when employers are grabbing us all by the sensitive parts and squeezing the lifeblood out of us and we don’t have the leverage we ought to have when it comes to negotiating new positions and salaries. I hope in spite of this, all 41 individuals quickly find fulfilling jobs that pay them a fair wage.

Anyway, many sites covered it, including Virtual World News. But what struck me as odd was how they phrased the headline: “Free Realms Developer Details Layoffs.” I read that headline and thought “Oh, I guess many of the 41 must have come from the Free Realms team.” but the article said nothing of the sort. In fact they offer no more details than any other site has.

But to Virtual World News, SOE is apparently known as ‘the company that makes Free Realms.’ With its long history of EQ products, and its big licenses like Star Wars & DC Comics…Free Realms is what stands out to VWN.

I just found that interesting and a little bit bizarre, so thought I’d share.