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Bethesda France has been shut down

Smitch

Smitch

The Unshakable Resolve of "this guy are sick"
Member
Apr 21, 2022
4,295

View: https://twitter.com/Desastre_Show/status/1782483445085520227
Bethesda France
🇫🇷
it's over!
😔
You probably saw it happening today but it's over at the offices in France. And that also applies to TESO and Fallout among others. So I'm going to use this tweet to say my public goodbyes to people without whom I wouldn't be where I am right now. As for TESO, in 10 years, I have known all the CMs. I went to the premises countless times and met some really kind people and had some unique moments for a gamer like me. Today I feel very sorry for them, even if I imagine that most of them will bounce back, especially when you see the way they are. Particularly Claire-Olga and Géraldine who always had a smile, a kind word. The CM obviously, the latest of which was BlueCactus, and Yu more recently, with whom I spoke practically every day and who faced my legendary sarcasm for so long. They trusted me, gave me many OPs to highlight the game and it is thanks to this, especially recently, that I have been able to stay afloat financially. Beyond the professional aspect, they are really great human beings, always attentive, available, and really very nice and I am sad about the way this adventure ended. That is to say without a sound, nothing at all! We close the curtain and then cut off the power. At TESO's 10th anniversary in Amsterdam, absolutely no one from the FR team on site. We now understand why but for me it's a shame. I wish all these people, and others not mentioned (because Bethesda France had around 15 employees) to be fulfilled in their next job and I will never thank them enough for everything they have given me. I hope we will meet again in other circumstances. Goodbye and thank you
🫡
D.
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View: https://twitter.com/MrsAgrougrou/status/1782492145040925041

View: https://twitter.com/scot_cool/status/1782427208302178349

View: https://twitter.com/Morrigh4n/status/1782492907229896947
 
Wereroku

Wereroku

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,376
Was this part of MS shutting down all of their customer service internally and outsourcing everything?
 
T0kenAussie

T0kenAussie

Member
Jan 15, 2020
5,169
There was a bgs france? Or was this just a localiser thing under bethesdas label?

Arkane Lyon is safe right?
 
Toumari

Toumari

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,335
England
Did they handle localisation? Guess we know where this could be heading based on this thread:

www.resetera.com

Let’s talk about Xbox’s UI translations around the world - what’s going wrong?

I’m an English-speaking Xbox owner, and I love the system, games, and ecosystem. It’s important to me that Xbox remains successful around the world, so I can continue to enjoy Xbox systems, and its games and ecosystem. I saw that thread about there being a 90% to 10% PlayStation-to-Xbox ratio...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com
 
Shairi

Shairi

Member
Aug 27, 2018
8,872
T0kenAussie said:
There was a bgs france? Or was this just a localiser thing under bethesdas label?

Arkane Lyon is safe right?
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Yeah, this isn't about game studios but the publishing arm most likely with community managers, localisation, marketing and so on.

Kinda in line with how bad Microsoft's efforts are in these fields outside of US and UK.
 
ImPacaTheCat

ImPacaTheCat

Member
Mar 3, 2020
1,491
Great job, MS. You're doing really well! Just put in a bit more effort and you're almost there. There are still some people in Europe who like your ecosystem, which isn't ideal. You need to work on being even less relevant. Keep it up!
 
Windrunner

Windrunner

Sly
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,626
It's okay, it's not like Xbox is being outsold 10:1 by the PS5 in France. Who needs a marketing division with more than 10 years of experience in the country?

Oh...
 
Cess007

Cess007

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,196
B.C., Mexico
I will not tell a multi-million dollar company how to handle its business, but I would think they need to invest in localization in EU, not divest. Unless...

They are gonna go full AI on the localization, ain't it?
 
--R

--R

Being sued right now, please help me find a lawyer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,000
t67443 said:
So clearly what has been going on for the past several years by that team has been helping immensely.
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I don't know how is Bethesda France's fault that they got bought by a company that has been pulling out of every territory for over a decade now. Closing Bethesda France is not gonna help them recover the ground Xbox has lost to both Nintendo and Sony in France.
 
Palette Swap

Palette Swap

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
11,327
That sounds exactly like Microsoft's abysmal console marketing outside English speaking countries.

I hope all of them find a job.
 
Kazaam

Kazaam

Member
Oct 26, 2017
1,799
London
What lovely timing with the massive tv show success. Squeeze that juice as much as you can Microsoft, I know times are tough... can't wait for the next big fish you swallow and dry like a raisin.

Hope everyone involved lands on their feet. It's quite brutal out there these days
 
brawndolicious

brawndolicious

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,994
Do Bethesda games generally have good marketing, translations, and sales in France? It's one of those support teams so it's hard to measure their performance directly.

It might just make more sense to centralize it all to one French office for Xbox rather than carve little feifdoms.

PLASTICA-MAN said:
Hold on. Isn't this the studio in charge of the upcoming Blade? What is happening to the game?
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No that's being made by Arkane. This Bethesda branch seems to be focused on marketing and localisation within France for Bethesda games.
 
FarSight XR-20

FarSight XR-20

Member
Jan 4, 2018
8,785
Typical. Destroying years of work definitely. Bethesda France were great and passionate people. It's so sad.

It's suggested here that it's also the reason why a big French event with Amazon for the TV show didn't happen as planned.
fallout-generation.com

Fermeture et arrêt des activités de Bethesda France

C'est avec le cœur lourd que nous vous informons aujourd'hui de l'arrêt des activités de Bethesda France après sa création en 2012. Nous avions appris la nouvelle il y a deux mois, à l'occasion de la Comic Con 2024 après une absence de nouvelles da CM de Bethesda France) via les canaux officiels,...
fallout-generation.com fallout-generation.com

The people taking these decisions are really clueless and out of touch.
 
elenarie

elenarie

Game Developer
Verified
Jun 10, 2018
10,060
Wereroku said:
Was this part of MS shutting down all of their customer service internally and outsourcing everything?
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I have no internal insights into any of this, but my personal impression of the layoffs they have been doing over the last 6 or so months has been that, a lot of the work done by non-core-dev-team teams, would eventually be outsourced and handled by external partners. Customer support, localisation, user research, playtesting, testing, eventually things like PR, marketing and sales as well. Have a small core marketing and brand organisation that then works with external agencies and hires external partners on and off for different projects.

The clearest indication of this to me is that, even after they restarted their efforts to build a stronger internal dev organisation at Xbox some 7-8 years ago, they have stayed away from putting together any sort of internal large scale organisation that many third party publishers (including Sony) have. An organisation of thousands across a variety of positions and disciplines that would help the core game teams ship their games. They seem to be more interested in outsourcing and partnering with external organisations than building something large internally.
 
Xeonidus

Xeonidus

“Fuck them kids.”
Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,344
Xbox HQ:

"How do we improve our situation in mainland Europe?"

"We can try.... closing offices?"

"Worth a shot!"
 
Palette Swap

Palette Swap

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
11,327
FarSight XR-20 said:
Typical. Destroying years of work definitely. Bethesda France were great and passionate people. It's so sad.

It's suggested here that it's also the reason why a big French event with Amazon for the TV show didn't happen as planned.
fallout-generation.com

Fermeture et arrêt des activités de Bethesda France

C'est avec le cœur lourd que nous vous informons aujourd'hui de l'arrêt des activités de Bethesda France après sa création en 2012. Nous avions appris la nouvelle il y a deux mois, à l'occasion de la Comic Con 2024 après une absence de nouvelles da CM de Bethesda France) via les canaux officiels,...
fallout-generation.com fallout-generation.com

The people taking these decisions are really clueless and out of touch.
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Man, the CM learning they got their access revoked through an email sounds brutal.

elenarie said:
The clearest indication of this to me is that, even after they restarted their efforts to build a stronger internal dev organisation at Xbox some 7-8 years ago, they have stayed away from putting together any sort of internal large scale organisation that many third party publishers (including Sony) have. An organisation of thousands across a variety of positions and disciplines that would help the core game teams ship their games. They seem to be more interested in outsourcing and partnering with external organisations than building something large internally.
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That's my read as well, and I'm going to assume this is larger than Xbox and an approach they have on a wider scale.

I'm biased, working in one of these fields (outside of the gaming industry), but this feels like the kind of thing that creates friction at every stage, and can lead to subpar performance.
 
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Oreiller

Oreiller

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,909
Reminder that Blizzard France, which was doing a stellar job with localisation and community management for decades, got closed down a year or two ago for cost cutting measures.
 
Kinguss

Kinguss

Member
Mar 29, 2024
55
Considering MS doesn't really care about Europe makes sense for them to close any local pr/marketing offices they have over here
 
DontHateTheBacon

DontHateTheBacon

Unshakable Resolve
Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,670
Damn. That sucks. I hope this stuff stops soon, it really has just put such a negative aura around the industry.
 
mael

mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
17,096
Is MSFT going to be in the business even 2 years from now?
Because why the hell would you close offices that do good job and know the market when your other ventures have been shown to be flaming trainwrecks?
 
Twohearts

Twohearts

Member
Feb 8, 2024
502
Straya
Rowsdower said:
That sucks.

Really feels like MS/Xbox only care about the US/UK at this point.
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Yep, basically feels like they've given up trying to get their games sucessful elsewhere in the world. Feels short sighted, especially considering the machine translations of so many things. I'm honestly not even sure they particuarly care about other primary English speaking countries, I don't feel they do a particuarly good job marketing Xbox here in Australia. This stuff ust really keeps making me wonder how long Xbox and microsoft gaming as a whole is going to be around
 
TheDoctor

TheDoctor

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,270
elenarie said:
I have no internal insights into any of this, but my personal impression of the layoffs they have been doing over the last 6 or so months has been that, a lot of the work done by non-core-dev-team teams, would eventually be outsourced and handled by external partners. Customer support, localisation, user research, playtesting, testing, eventually things like PR, marketing and sales as well. Have a small core marketing and brand organisation that then works with external agencies and hires external partners on and off for different projects.

The clearest indication of this to me is that, even after they restarted their efforts to build a stronger internal dev organisation at Xbox some 7-8 years ago, they have stayed away from putting together any sort of internal large scale organisation that many third party publishers (including Sony) have. An organisation of thousands across a variety of positions and disciplines that would help the core game teams ship their games. They seem to be more interested in outsourcing and partnering with external organisations than building something large internally.
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Your observations are pretty spot on.

Microsoft did the exact opposite on the publishing side in Europe. Local offices were closed down and consolidated. Even Xbox France is no longer its own entity. Last year it became part of Xbox Southwest Europe (which already covered Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece).

Most of the customer-facing roles are being outsourced to external agencies.
 
bitcloudrzr

bitcloudrzr

Member
May 31, 2018
14,388
Nickerbocker98 said:
"No no, dig up, stupid!"
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Windrunner said:
It's okay, it's not like Xbox is being outsold 10:1 by the PS5 in France. Who needs a marketing division with more than 10 years of experience in the country?

Oh...
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Like they are the ones trying to make sure they hit their sales decline targets.

Rowsdower said:
That sucks.

Really feels like MS/Xbox only care about the US/UK at this point.
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They are not doing well in those areas either.
 
Celestial Descend

Celestial Descend

Corrupted by Vengeance
Member
Aug 15, 2022
3,512
To me it makes perfect sense to outsource localization instead of maintaining an internal localization team. It's not like there's new stuff to localize everyday. A publisher only releases so many new games each year.
 

VAD

Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,591
What happened to « think global, act local? » Microsoft is playing 5d chess, it's not for us mortals to question this brilliant management.
 
mael

mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
17,096
TripleBee said:
The worlds most valuable company will likely be in business in 2 years.
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i tend to skip words, I meant in the gaming industry.
If Microsoft itself folds in the next 2 years, something catastrophic happened and I think that the health of the gaming industry may be small potato compared to that event.
 
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