Fuck Microsoft

In 2014, Nintendo’s then-latest video game consoles, the Wii U and 3DS, had been underperforming. In response, company CEO and industry icon, the late Satoru Iwata, took a pay cut of a staggering 50%. Why? Because it was either that or begin laying off staff.

Would that other executives were so compassionate. Or competent.

You’ve probably heard the news. In the latest wave of games industry lay-offs, Microsoft has brought the guillotine down on Bethesda. Specifically two of their subsidiary studios, Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. You may know the former for their work on such games as the Dishonored series, Prey, Deathloop, and Redfall. The latter, you may know from the Evil Within series, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Hi-Fi Rush.

If you’ve been a reader of mine for about a year, first of all: thanks. Second of all, you might remember that I was quite taken with Hi-Fi Rush. It quickly became one of my favorite games of all time, and would likely have been my game of the year had Baldur’s Gate 3 not happened. I thought it was the best game Xbox had put out in nearly a decade.

Nor was I the only one. Hi-Fi Rush quickly became a smash success. Streamers were playing it all over, the review scores were overwhelmingly positive, and the game was a quick financial success. And according to a statement from game director John Johanas, the game was in development well before the Microsoft acquisition; Xbox literally landed their most successful title in years by sheer force of luck.

And they still got the axe.

Oh, but Phil Spencer is ‘hurting as much as anyone else.’ Don’t worry, everyone, the corporate suit that keeps making stupid fucking decisions and ruining everything for everyone feels bad. That’ll get you to buy the new flame-skinned Xbox controller, right? How else are you going to play the games they keep not making?

In all seriousness, Microsoft’s actual response to the controversy is an absolute joke. I’ve seen some tone-deaf responses to controversy before, but holy shit, this one might just take the cake. Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, went on record saying, quote:

We need smaller games that give us prestige and awards.

So I guess Hi-Fi Rush’s Game Award, Game Developers Choice award, and BAFTA are just star stickers on the refrigerator.

This news has made the already dire state of the industry even more obvious. Working for a AAA studio is an unwinnable battle. Make a bad game? You’re fired. Make a great game? You’re fired. Thanks for your hard work, game developers, now fuck you and get out.

It’s sad to think that we were once optimistic about Xbox acquiring new studios. After all, they couldn’t do worse for a company like Blizzard than Activision did. Besides, how could we not get our hopes up when Phil Spencer says things like this?

I want to give the teams the creative platform to go and push their ability, push their aspirations.

Microsoft promised over and over again that they’d let their studios run themselves. That they’d let the developers unleash their creativity and develop the games they wanted to make. New titles that would revolutionize the industry.

Thanks, Phil. You pushed their aspirations off a cliff. Hope you’re proud of yourself.

It’s legitimately impressive how horribly managed Xbox has been this last decade. What few games are half-baked and broken thanks to corporate shoving them out the door too fast. On top of that, they get little to no marketing to promote any new release, thus sabotaging their own sales numbers. I can’t imagine Game Pass helps improve that; why buy that new game when you could try it out for free with a subscription service?

To be clear, I’m not ragging on Game Pass. While I don’t use it personally, I acknowledge that it is a very good deal for consumers. Almost too good a deal. I find it difficult to believe that there are no negative ramifications on development costs. Maybe in a perfect world, but as this situation more than proves, we ain’t livin’ in one of those.

This whole debacle fucking sucks. Hundreds of developers left jobless. Their future titles cancelled. Their IPs taken out back and shot. All so yet another corporation can ever so slightly improve their bottom line.

And the worst part is: we all know this isn’t going to be the last time.

Fuck you, Microsoft. Just… fuck you.

Sources:

2 responses to “Fuck Microsoft”

  1. terranceacrow Avatar
    terranceacrow

    “All so yet another corporation can ever so slightly improve their bottom line.”

    I’d change that slightly to say: All so yet another corporation can ever so slightly improve their bottom line — _for the next quarter._

    That’s another infuriating aspect about all this. Once an entity — a country, a company, whatever — grows large enough to insulate themselves from the immediate consequences of bad decisions, they require wisdom to drive them. Like the US leadership at the end of WWII realizing they were now more or less in the position to effect the entire planet. Did they let that go to their heads? Nope. They asked how they could avoid the mistakes of the past. You know, like the Roman or British Empires.

    So instead of conquering, we got the Marshall Plan, NATO, and decades of peace and properity.

    It happened to GM. It’s going to catch up with Microsoft. Their sheer size gives them the momentum to avoid the consequences of their immediate decisions. But it also plants the seeds to their eventual fall.

    Which current leadership doesn’t care about, because it’s beyond their current quarter or bonus cycle.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. jernahblunt Avatar
      jernahblunt

      Hit the nail right on the head there. I just wish the eventual fall didn’t come at the expense of hard working game devs.

      Man. This sucks.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment