Submitted 1 day ago by simple@piefed.social to games@lemmy.world
https://www.polygon.com/analysis/610779/microsoft-layoffs-perfect-dark-everwild-mismanagement
Eighteen months ago, I was an advocate for Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard, because I didn’t think anybody could have done a worse job than Bobby Kotick.
Phil Spencer has proven me wrong. This arsehole tried to shut down Tango Gameworks after they literally shadowdropped a critically acclaimed GOTY contender.
I still kinda want Microsoft to by Activision Blizzard, but not for altruistic reasons.
But Microsoft already bought Activision Blizzard.
Bizarre Creations had the misfortune of being owned by both of them before being shut down.
It really shows that something is fucked up in businessland that they’re so bad at managing studios, when managing studios is literally all they fucking do.
Same with EA. It’s just a wasteland of dead companies. The list of studios they’ve closed is bigger than the list of ones they still own.
But that is the whole point. You don’t buy studio to make games, you buy them to get rid of competitors.
And for Microsoft, to get a back catalogue to ensure your subscription service remains attractive.
not always true, they clearly bought zenimax to make exclusive xbox games.
Has Zenimax even released any xbox exclusives? As far as I know they’ve all been cross platform.
I'm not really all that bothered. Unlike movies, new start ups for making games happen a lot. When the greedy giants topple, like a forest something grows in the new patch of sunlight.
We probably wouldn’t have expedition 33 if Ubisoft gave people a reason to stay
I wish that was true, but funding has dried up across the entire sector and that affects the viability of smaller studios more than it does the mega corps with bottomless warchests.
i don’t believe the next video game collapse is going to be very pretty for anyone. also, most independent studios and developers make little to no money at all
its only the big publishers that are going to crash, so nothing of value will be lost.
Personally I agree. I’ve seen way more startups kicking off with these waves of layoffs. It’s a silver lining, not much more, but I’m happy to see people finally realizing they don’t want the big tech solutions anymore.
Still bugs me that Microsoft owns the rights to the King’s Quest series, though.
I mean sure but just like with movies, the rights dont change hands very often, even if they’re not being actively used or the rights holder goes out of business. This means a ton of promising franchises either suffer by getting terrible sequels or no sequels at all.
Honestly no sequel is better. Dishonored is great, but i don’t want any sequel under the current Arkane.
They’re really good at killing them though. I’ll never forgive the death of Ensemble.
Don’t forget they also murdered Rare.
I 100% believe the claim that Microsoft executives mistakenly thought they’ve just nabbed the Donkey Kong IP by acquiring Rare. Definitely seems like something some c-suite ghouls who are totally out of touch with the games industry would believe.
Also, I’m not sure how much of Rare’s downfall was due to Microsoft’s mismanagement or their core talent leaving to form other studios. Maybe a bit of both.
Arkane Studios for me.
We’ve bought these studios that are loved by gamers for their niche content.
What do you mean they’re not making the next Fortnite? Shut them down immediately.
I couldn’t believe it when they shut down the studio that did Hi-Fi Rush. They put out a great game that received universal praise, then shut them down like a few months later. Infuriating.
To be fair, Age of Empires III was bad, and the last project Ensemble was working on before they got shuttered was a Halo MMO.
Also, Robot Entertainment (the studio that rose from the ashes of Ensemble) were the initial developers of Age of Empires Online, which was P2W slop that 90% of players couldn’t run because Games For Windows LIVE was a buggy crock of shit. And since then they’ve released nothing but Orcs Must Die games.
A Halo MMO could have been cool.
Speaking of MMOs or open world games, I wish that Stargate MMO game got off the ground. That would have so much potential.
“You’ll have GaaS and you’ll like it.”
Microsoft owns taco bell?
All this to feed 545 insatiable hunger for another halo slop.
RIP halo, my favorite competitive shooter ever 😭 infinite is such an absolute botch.
Even Halo 5 had redeeming qualities. I legit wish Infinite would be treated like a fan made game and ignored so they can make a Halo 6 that concludes the Promethean saga.
Maybe I’m missing context on this, but halo slop?
Infinite came out 3 years ago and though they’ve done updates and general live service garbage there haven’t been any major releases since. Halo isn’t a yearly release schedule, charging full price for the same game every year like sports games, so i’m not seeing the slop…
The reality is that Halo has never really been anything more than a mediocre fps when compared to what had already been coming out for years on PC.
Ever since 545 take over from Bungie, halo fans hasn’t been eating good. 4 is really bad, 5 is subpar, infinite is just ok. Not to mention the spinoff and tv series.
Yeah, remember when we had a proper alternative to twitch that had a better & faster Streaming Protocol called Mixer. Which was actually focussed on Gaming ??
Yeah it was run by Microsoft & then they killed it.
Why cancel Freelancer 2, Microsoft? Why?
From Crosspoint I heard that they even cancelled and shut down the studio making a game that Phil Spencer himself was said to have liked so much, they had to force him to quit playing their demo in a meeting about it. Not to mention the absolute waste of time and money on nearly finished projects that were probably going to sell well.
Quarterly profits.
I look forward to the small new game studios that will surely appear as the big old ones are consolidated and/or dismantled.
It’s disappointing to see things we like fade away, but as the sun sets in one place, it rises in another.
Smaller studios have been consistently putting out good games as of late anyway. Indy and AA studios have the freedom to make fun things instead of having to check every box on a spreadsheet.
oyzmo@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
The problem in most big companies (and organisations or countries) is that leaders promote people who think like themselves or at least are very agreeable. And as time passes they end up surrounding themselves with yes-people; every bad idea is cheered on, because all the critics have been fired or are way down in the hierarchy.
Hackworth@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
And in that environment, everyone who actually understands how things work quits or gets quit. It’s my understanding that there are large sections of code bases that MS just doesn’t touch, because everyone who understood how they functioned is gone. Continuity of institutional knowledge is difficult in the best cases and impossible under leaders that discourage dissenting perspectives. /gestures about wildly
CatDogL0ver@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
So true. All those suck ups are at the top and the bosses overestimate themselves. What we need more smaller studios.