General Games News - The Bear and Badger

regmcfly

Fable?

Diluted Dante

Christ, if you can't decide on it being first or third person 4 years in, just bin it off.

Paul the sparky

Is Grubb not reliably unreliable?

Moot_Geeza

Pub Grubb's a massive goss after a few light ales.

Syph79

Bloomberg: More Xbox cuts are on the way across the organization.

This comes after closing down Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks and other Bethesda studios. Xbox Game Pass has also not seen the growth that leadership had been hoping for, with non-mobile gaming subscription spending "flat to low single-digit growth" since 2021.

regmcfly

Here's the article -

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-08/xbox-studio-closures-microsoft-plans-more-cost-cutting-measures-after-layoffs?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTcxNTE5ODUzNywiZXhwIjoxNzE1ODAzMzM3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTRDZOSzZEV1gyUFMwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.Ae8Wc_YmUJla6VHol8aa5AIVOUAmdYTiRnQ2nKph6NY

Seems like an absolute mess, they went crazy when inflation suited and bought up everything in sight so they could have that E3 wheeling out studios and when those studios said we can turn out a game every 4-5 years they decided that wasn't good enough.

I'm also not sure 9 studios means a company like Microsoft is going to "topple over" but that's fag paper logic from me.

During a town hall with ZeniMax staff on Wednesday morning, Xbox president Matt Booty praised Hi-Fi Rush but did not specify why the company had shut down the development studio behind it, according to three people who were in attendance.

Speaking about the closures more broadly, Booty said that the company’s studios had been spread too thin — like “peanut butter on bread” — and that leaders across the division had felt understaffed. They decided to close these studios to free up resources elsewhere, he said.

Booty added that the shutdown of subsidiary Arkane Austin, the longtime developer of games such as Prey, was not connected to the performance of its new multiplayer game, Redfall, a critical and commercial flop.

Before its closure, Arkane had been looking to return to its roots by pitching a new single-player “immersive sim” game, such as a new entry in the Dishonored series, according to the people familiar.

Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,” she said, according to audio of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg.

“I think we were about to topple over,” she added

Syph79

Obvious observation to make was the initial lay-offs were all roles deemed unnecessary due to the merger of multiple studios under the Xbox umbrella. You then have leadership roles saying they’re spread too thin to be effective, resulting in the studios they’re there to lead being closed down. Phenomenal management from the top down.

Blocks100

They better not close down Undead Labs who are working on State of Decay 3. I'll never forgive them if they do that.

Diluted Dante

I want that, so it's as good as gone.

Minnesänger

LivDiv wrote:

Grubb saying Perfect Dark is a mess. Forgot that was something that was being worked on if I'm honest. The announcement trailer was 2020. Bad luck if you've got that on your E3 not E3 bingo card.

Yeah, I would call the project absolutely cursed except...this is just MS failing to manage another internal studio. It's a trash fire.

Minnesänger

For real though, Arkane Austin could make a banging Perfect Dark game. I wonder if they're free...oh.

afgavinstan

Yeah this one irks especially as its simply not a case of "well, you can see why from a financial pov" because, well, you can't. It's not that. It's just simply very cruel. $380m parachute payment for Bobby, mind.

Phil is fucked.

JonB

Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,” she said, according to audio of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. “I think we were about to topple over,” she added

Fuck me. Maybe someone should have thought of this before you bought up half the studios in the industry. This is nothing more than gambling, with people's careers as a stake.

yourfavouriteuncle

It’s not dissimilar to all that embracer group shit is it?
Cheap money, buy it all, growth!!!!

Oh fuck, what have we done?

yourfavouriteuncle

And since all this started it was always gonna be the next game that did it. That kickstarted GP and that exponential growth. Forza, oh but that’s just cars. Then Halo, oh but that’s 343. Then Starfield, oh but there’s no beaches. Then Hellblade next. Then it’ll be Fable, that’ll be the one…

I think there’s some weird kind of monkey paw curse over Xbox.

Bob

Paul the sparky wrote:

Maybe it didn't sell well on PlayStation? It was one of the games ported over right?

Yeah that was the problem

Diluted Dante

JonB wrote:

Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,” she said, according to audio of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. “I think we were about to topple over,” she added

Fuck me. Maybe someone should have thought of this before you bought up half the studios in the industry. This is nothing more than gambling, with people's careers as a stake.

Maybe the central team shouldn't be lean if thats the issue.

LivDiv

I just get the impression these studios aren't deemed worth the effort to MS.
They could add more support staff, but why bother for such a miniscule amount of profit (relatively).

Which puts basically everyone that isnt pumping out the big releases at risk.

Tempy

JonB wrote:

Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,” she said, according to audio of the meeting reviewed by Bloomberg. “I think we were about to topple over,” she added

Fuck me. Maybe someone should have thought of this before you bought up half the studios in the industry. This is nothing more than gambling, with people's careers as a stake.

I quite enjoyed the quote where they said they let go of AA and TGW because they were pitching games "that were a few years away from release". Do they know? Do they understand that games are developed? The last few articles covering Town Halls and such like make it sound like management is completely asleep at the wheel.

Syph79

How would they know games are developed? They've not released any for years.

LivDiv

No what you do is you buy a studio or group of studios and they have games ready to go in just a few months.
For some reason it takes years for them to follow up on that with another game though, probably lazy.

LivDiv

Also what are Town Halls? Is this like stand ups and megasplicing or whatever its called?

MattyJ

Town Hall is a big meeting of everyone in company where seniors explain state of company currently. Usually have ability for employees to ask questions.

Basically like a town gathering in the hall to discuss the pressing issues.

LivDiv

A company meeting then. Cheers.

g.man

MattyJ wrote:

Town Hall is a big meeting of everyone in company where seniors explain state of company currently. Usually have ability for employees to ask questions. Basically like a town gathering in the hall to discuss the pressing issues.

LivDiv

Syph79

Monorail!

LivDiv

This is a good read.
The headline feels a bit clickbaity at first but when it asks the question again at the end of the article it actually doesnt feel that clickbait at all.
Good OP bit anyway.

https://www.eurogamer.net/what-is-the-point-of-xbox

Syph79

Just thinking how everyone at Microsoft must be terrified of a Booty Call.

Wookienopants

Syph79 wrote:

Monorail!

LOL

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