Industry and Video game layoff thread |OT| Any future layoff info please place in here.

Sloane_Ranger

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3 Jul 2023
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A bit of future positivity from the horrible news:

Maybe we see many of the effected devs start new indepenant studios, and we see an indy boom in a few years!

Maybe more devs, both those who lost their jobs and those who see Microsofts negative impact on gaming but are silent, become more vocal and we see backlash like we saw with consumers during the Xbox One launch.

I think (hope) that the exposure MS is getting now, and what will come with the potential 3rd party announcement / announcements next week, people and influencers and the gaming press will finially wake up and see what Microsoft is attempting to do to the gaming ecosystem and help to stop its spread.

Just some hopeful thoughts for a rainy Friday.
 
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Heisenberg007

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21 Jun 2022
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I think there are different possible reasons:

One is that some recent CoDs had a marketing deal with Sony that blocked to include them in rival game subs like GP during a certain period after their release. If it's the same period than Resident Evil series, it's almost a year and a half, having Sony preference to negotiate to put it in their service if they want. In that case the period would be longer.

Another is that MS no longer will manage the rights of ABK games for gamesubs that include cloud gaming, but instead Ubisoft: for the whole ABK back catalog plus their games to be released in the next 15 years. So Ubisoft should be negotiating now with the different subsbriptions.

The third is that they need some time to adapt and implement everything. They said that would start including stuff in GP this year.

The fourth is that they must be working in their MS mobile gaming store + Xcloud client, now that iOS will allow it at least for EU.

The fifth is that apparently they are reviewing their stategy with these hints of them doing more steps to become a full multiplatform publisher and leave behind their suicidal business plan. So maybe they are reviewing also their strategy with GP and maybe they stop putting there day one games, or at least to highly reduce their number, and also to don't include there all their new and old games but instead to have only a few of them rotating, in order to move their focus back to sell games.
For newer COD, maybe. But older COD games should be eligible. Other than that, games like Spyro, Crash, Diablo, Tony Hawk, etc. should be eligible anyway.

I think the reason is something else.

They may be holding them for as long as they can to leech as much revenue as they could because the inevitable cannibalization begins OR perhaps they may be rethinking their Game Pass tier / strategy, wanting to introduce a new tier (or raise the price of Ultimate) to introduce ABK games.
 

Gods&Monsters

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Apparently this person is a COD leaker:


Yep. That's why they were all about the unions during the acquisition. QA are the most unionized so they were all fired. Temp workers don't need unions.

Microsoft need to be investigated but CWA are garbage fools and they won't say anything. They got paid for their lobbying.
 

Yurinka

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21 Jun 2022
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For newer COD, maybe. But older COD games should be eligible. Other than that, games like Spyro, Crash, Diablo, Tony Hawk, etc. should be eligible anyway.

I think the reason is something else.

They may be holding them for as long as they can to leech as much revenue as they could because the inevitable cannibalization begins OR perhaps they may be rethinking their Game Pass tier / strategy, wanting to introduce a new tier (or raise the price of Ultimate) to introduce ABK games.
Yes, older games should be elegible. But Ubisoft is negotiating with other subs to include them elsewhere too, so may need time.

It would make sense to include 2 years old and older games, that would avoid issues with Sony deals and also wouldn't almost cannibalize sales of old games because they already don't sell almost.

And yes, it would make sense to include them in premium only, similar to EA games. That would reduce even more the cannibalization because less gamers would have access to them, and the ones doing so would pay more for them.

Holding them would reduce the cannibalation, too, but also would mean there would be less time for Sony deals blocking them. Maybe if they way some months more they can launch there last year CoD the same day they start including ABK titles to GP.

MS will continue raising the GP price, and that would be a good excuse to raise it for Ultimate at the same time they add a first big chunk of ABK titles.

As I remember GP Ultimate is now $180/year, they could raise it at something like $16.99/month ($203.88/year).
 
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xollowsob

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Weird. My eyes never stop at the sticky threads and that Heisenberg post about GP was also merged here for no reason when it was a separate discussion.

I really wonder who are these users asking for that and why do you listen to them? A bunch of posts are getting merged and breaks all the conversations.
The stories about small and medium studios laying off fifty or a hundred people here or there isn't big news.
Stories about fifty or a hundred small studios all laying off staff points to bigger news.

Right now this thread is bouncing because MS keep shooting themselves in the foot. When it dies down it makes sense to put it in the thread.

You may whizz past the stickies, but on-going sagas over many months involving many players are always worth combining to watch the progression, Or regression of the industry.
 

Gods&Monsters

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The stories about small and medium studios laying off fifty or a hundred people here or there isn't big news.
Stories about fifty or a hundred small studios all laying off staff points to bigger news.
When the studio is well-known, 50 or 100 is a lot. Bungie was 100 and the news was everywhere so I'm not sure about burying the news in a sticky nobody will read.

Right now this thread is bouncing because MS keep shooting themselves in the foot. When it dies down it makes sense to put it in the thread.
Yeah sure, like an archive when the thread is dead a few weeks later but we are the next day of this mega news with updates coming every minute so thinking about moving the thread is way too early.

And I never read the stickies. There's so many of them I just scroll past them 🤷‍♂️
 
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AllBizness

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22 Jul 2023
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A bit of future positivity from the horrible news:

Maybe we see many of the effected devs start new indepenant studios, and we see an indy boom in a few years!

Maybe more devs, both those who lost their jobs and those who see Microsofts negative impact on gaming but are silent, become more vocal and we see backlash like we saw with consumers during the Xbox One launch.

I think (hope) that the exposure MS is getting now, and what will come with the potential 3rd party announcement / announcements next week, people and influencers and the gaming press will finially wake up and see what Microsoft is attempting to do to the gaming ecosystem and help to stop its spread.

Just some hopeful thoughts for a rainy Friday.
I doubt we see this happen, they just lost their jobs so their focus would be to not spend money on a start up and especially in this environment where interest rates are high. Any devs looking to go independent needs a loan from a bank and rates are just too high right now, this is the same reason why we are seeing all these layoffs in the first place.
 
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Gamernyc78

Gamernyc78

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Partner of Hardware at Xbox. Developer of the Series X and S, and Elite Controlled 1 & 2 has left Xbox. On his own terms.

Damn thy are just leaking all the talent everywhere. In regards to COD layoffs with all the talent tht left Sony or another could scoop them up and make their COD successor or an fps game.
 

xollowsob

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6 Jan 2024
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When the studio is well-known, 50 or 100 is a lot. Bungie was 100 and the news was everywhere so I'm not sure about burying the news in a sticky nobody will read.
Yeah but that news comes and goes like a fart in a hurricane. The mega thread will be revitalised with every lay off and, if the winds are anything to go by, there will be a lot of lay offs and we will have a timeline and trackback across the year.

Yeah sure, like an archive when the thread is dead a few weeks later but we are the next day of this mega news with updates coming every minute so thinking about moving the thread is way too early.
Mods said they'll wait until this dies down. They won't kill their own traffic for the lulz.
And I never read the stickies. There's so many of them I just scroll past them 🤷‍♂️
Sounds like a you problem.