[IGN] Microsoft Lays Off 1,900 Staff From Its Video Game Workforce
- Thread starter --R
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Brutal.
I expect they will announce some ABK games are coming to GamePass very soon to hide the bad press with good press.
I expect they will announce some ABK games are coming to GamePass very soon to hide the bad press with good press.
Everyone knew money was cheap for a few years and that belts were absolutely going to tighten. This has been the most widely understood looming shadow in tech for years.
Microsoft spent a LOT of money in the last year and has just been championed as the new #1 company on Earth.
Knowing how easy it would have been to avoid this situation is 100% fair ground for criticizing Microsoft.
You don't need to defend this action as a smart move. It was stupid and greedy with a preventable outcome.
I do not care what happens to shareholders stocks. You're wasting time gesturing to their best interests when it's vividly clear I'm concerned about the 1,900 people who just lost their jobs.
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The thing is that the vast majority gamers outside of the Twitter/net bubble won't care. Microsoft knows that.
Then the definition of console wars has changed
I feel like Merger and Acquisition fallout and finance/workplace sustainability conversations are so far removed as topics from the knuckle dragging of console wars that putting them in the same boat is insane.
CWA statement
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This.
I didn't comment much on the other thread because I was worried I'd be banned for console warring for pointing out why that acquisition is horrible for gaming.
Yeah this kind of thing is just automatic after a merger but obviously they didn't HAVE to do it and it totally sucks regardless, wishing luck to anyone let go - hope you all find jobs and end up ok.
My brother was hired at Blizzard back in October and 2 of my close friends also work there. All of them just waiting for the email confirming whether they have jobs come Monday.
What a terrible day.
What a terrible day.
pretty much why I just lurked that thread. it was a minefield for anyone who pointed out that the other shoe was gonna drop at some point.
this all just sucks so much and it's only January. no one's safe.
in the Palworld threads talking about how MS should buy the developer
2024 is not looking good for the industry...
LMAO. That's great.
LMAO. That's great.
The problem here is that there are not enough jobs in the industry for all the people who keep getting made redundant to land on their feet. The industry is contracting like crazy as companies rush to cut costs, and the jobs being eliminated aren't being opened up in other places in the industry. A LOT of the people who lose their jobs today will never work in gaming again as a result. Especially when major corps want to use AI to replace rank and file workers at all levels of their organizations!
This can't continue at this pace. It can't.
Really horrible news. I hope everyone lands on their feet from this. Many people in my life have asked me quite a few times if I would ever love to do game development for a large corporation and don't really think that stuff like this happens in this industry. I don't think these companies ever think that it can be hard for creative people to give their best work knowing that at any moment your head could be on the chopping block for whatever reason regardless of how good you do your job.
To be clear, I'm not saying that's the mod stance, but it's how many people replied to that post at the time, as if it was a console warrior thing.
It's going to be hard to discuss the dark side of the industry without being able to mention MS, Sony or Nintendo. People seem to take calling them out as a console war thing.
About the layoffs? Yeah most definitely won't care, which sucks. Not really sure what we can do though, every big company is just laying off hundreds or thousands of people every month. All of us "regular Joes" are just getting poorer and poorer, while the rich get richer.
Amen. The merger thread was like a cult. Go back and look at what they said to Arc when he posted about the layoffs. Dozens of posters were making fun of him, saying this surely wouldn't happen. This was how the thread went for years, with everyone who was against it being made out to be console warriors. I don't give a fuck about PlayStation or Xbox. I have literally not bought a game from Activision/Blizzard as long as I can remember and own an Xbox and a gaming PC.
i will probably get banned for this lol
The infuriating thing about that too would be how those concerns were always met with "SO YOU'RE JUST FINE WITH BOBBY KOTICK?!"
Like motherfucker, this shit is more complex and far reaching than that, and Bobby ain't gonna feel any of the shit he's deserved.
That's not what that says? CWA-unioned jobs at MS weren't affected, so they respected the union if anything.
What kills me is sending out a memo about the firing of 1900 people and sign it with Phil. Just you friend Phil. Read the room.
I don't think this comes as a surprise. There was going to be too much redundancy for some roles, and the spaces that have a lot of redundancy are usually the first to go.
Hope the people that have been laid off have a good landing.
Hope the people that have been laid off have a good landing.
2024 seems like the ideal time for workers in union states to start organizing. It's really the only protection many are going to have.
I'm sorry to hear that, is has to be super stressful for them today.
Holy shit, you know what's funny? I seem to remember that post and I think that's why this news wasn't shocking. Subconsciously remembered it when I saw the news and was like "this is to be expected because I'm super smart and surely thought of this on my own".
Don't worry, we can just make games bigger and more expensive to pump up the budget so we need to hire more people! /s
Ok, sarcasm aside, I haven't heard much about layoffs on the indie/lower budget companies. Maybe I missed them. If not, this just makes me glad I barely support big budget games the pass 2 or 3 years.
So sad to hear about the survival game. So many great devs left hearthstone to work on it and now many are probably fired 😔.
Actually, according to the union the shops that had unionized were totally unaffected by all this. So, unionize please.
A bunch of smaller studios have straight up shut down. The most prominent in my mind being the shadow tactics devs.
User Banned (1 Month): Inflammatory accusations, prior bans for identical behavior
We've been gaslighted by pro-acquisition people over the last two years that capitalism won't do the thing it always will. Been spun a tale about how this merger will result in improved job security and that regulators like the FTC should be defunded for daring to oppose it. Dissenters got dogpiled and thread banned in the only discussion thread permitted on the forum.
You can interpret this as "platform warring" if you want but I am livid that people are losing their jobs and having years of work amount to nothing, including those who worked for my favourite developer. Inevitably the thing that many of us feared came to pass.
I think there is a lot more to discuss here than posts about "thoughts and prayers", there needs to be some introspection among games players, that cheering on these mega mergers does not result in more competition and innovation nor does it benefit the workers. Phil Spencer with his 8 figure salary is not your friend, those gamer t-shirts he wears does not mean he's going to bring back fan favourites from the '90s and the promise of unionisation does not mean there won't be mass layoffs.
Or we can go back to fantasising about Xbox buying Sega because it totally won't happen again, the next time will be different.
The exec word salad is always such utter bullshit. Do they think people read that and think, "yeah that seems justified and reasonable".
Did this 'With a union, employers are required to negotiate over the impact of layoffs' happen?
I'm not in tune with the role of a union but i thought they'd cover all employees?
Thanks for the clarification Sr Kitsune alexjimithing
The MS stock price ticker going up right in the middle of the video. wow
I have to say this is the most cruelest thing about worker rights in the US.
Finding out that you got fired because your software is locked and you can't work.
Indies are also struggling, both developers and publishers. Coming out with a hit, expanding, and then not being able to replicate previous successes is a very common story.
Fucking disgusting. And the suits that made this decision did not give a single shit for any of the lives that they just completely upended.
So Microsoft fired people that were out of the union in order to avoid negotiations? It wasn't even based on overall meritocracy (i.e. better performers, etc.) ?
Really unfortunate, I hope everyone lands on their feet. I can't believe all the layoffs recently in tech.
Would love to see unions strengthen and MAYBE our Government take another look at anti-trust legislation
Awful, if predictable, news.
Hey, some bags of money were made on the back of that acquisition, so it's all good.
Hey, some bags of money were made on the back of that acquisition, so it's all good.
Indies don't usually do layoffs, they usually just shut down entirely when their business model becomes unsustainable. Layoffs are typically symptomatic of larger-scale companies as a general rule.
And we know that life hasn't been easy for indie devs lately, either.
Yup. Unions aren't magic, they can't COMPLETELY prevent layoffs, but the gaming industry desperately, desperately needs to unionize. At virtually every level of development.
coming into layoff news threads and just posting "it was bound to happen, i hope they land on their feet" is the era equivalent of "thoughts and prayers"
I hope this whole situation leads to more people being aware of the importance of unionization specifically as a counterpoint to reckless corporate hiring patterns. Decision-making at this scale needs a structural counterpoint for the various stakeholders (i.e., the actual workforce). It'll never be perfect, but it can be so much better.
Don't take this as disagreement per-se, but I think there's more worth emphasizing. For my part, I think it's bad to over-simplify it to the point of thinking consolidation explains why this is happening considering the layoffs we see throughout the industry right now at companies without any major consolidations as a factor. Ironically, blaming consolidation as the key cause is leaning into the "it's normal" angle because it implies that if we somehow stopped consolidation, this stuff wouldn't happen; We unfortunately know it definitely would continue because it's caused by a broader range of issues.