Submitted 4 weeks ago by tonytins@pawb.social to games@lemmy.world
https://www.polygon.com/news/610607/rare-everwild-canceled-xbox-game-studios-layoffs
News of Everwild’s cancellation arrives amid more layoffs at Microsoft; the company is reportedly slashing nearly 9,000 jobs as part of new cuts at Microsoft.
Wow. It was rumored to be a big layoff, but 9,000 is way over any forecast. And this is what? The third so far since Covid? Is there anyone left working for them, at this point? Or is it all seasonal contractors?
Contractors never count in layoff numbers, so this number would be much, much worse if you included them. The actual job losses could easily be more than doubled.
Fable is on emergency watch
Considering that it skipped the last showcase despite reportedly releasing next year, I don’t have high hopes for that one.
Wouldn’t be surprised if it was built on the backs of seasonal contractors. Seems like that’s the strategy they have chosen for their other big IPs as well (Forza Motorsport 8 and Halo Infinite).
It’s incredible that the clowns in charge of the gaming division and responsible for dragging it through the mud for all these years get to keep their job and will probably see an increase in their salaries as well, while the people that lost their jobs because of their incompetence will get nothing but a sad press release from Uncle Phil the HR department.
I don’t think we get granular info on this stuff, all we know is this latest round of cuts involves sales too as they are moving to outsource some of that work. And that Microsoft’s total head count has been mostly level since they added a ton of people with acquisitions and hires in 2022.
Clearly, Xbox has seen a lot of cuts though.
I think…
I think this is it. We’re in the “coughing up blood” stage of Xbox divesting from hardware and turning into just a publisher.
The can’t even publish games properly at this point. They’re just gobbling up other studio/publisher’s products for Gamepass.
Fuck!!!
NoForwardslashS@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
I didn’t realise the game was being developed entirely by management.
Also I hate the “increased agility” line. No-one gets more agile by having to cover the work of laid off folks on too of your own workload.
LettyWhiterock@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
There’s a logic to a smaller team being more “agile” than a larger team, but yeah these companies aren’t turning them into smaller studios. They’re expecting fewer people to do the work of a larger studio. The problems are obviously except to execs who are literally too stupid to think.
NoForwardslashS@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
It’ll be fine because with CoPilot all 10 of the remaining programmers will be able to do the work of 1000!
That or we’re going to see increasingly shoddy AAA titles in the near future and the industry is going to implode.