Not big numbers, but it should be able to sell 1+million. It doesnt need the top of the range graphics and animations, so shouldnt be sooo expensive to make.
Toys for Bob is going Independent
- Thread starter Jim Ryan
- Start date
Tell me how Xbox Game Studios is any better than Embracer Group at this juncture.
because TFB wanted it themselves, it wasn't XGS kicking them out. Embracer has just straight up closed whole studios down, Xbox hasn't done that since (IIRC) 2016 with Lionhead (which they regret)
They let TFB go on their own accord, and TFB is exploring a partnership with Microsoft.
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XGS is just a bit behind the curve, is all. They're just now hitting the point now where they are realizing they are not going to get the money to sustain all the studios they acquired. The closures are coming, and TFB is the canary in the coal mine.
I don't think XGS will be anywhere near Embracer, Embracer has closed 5 studios (Square Enix Montréal, Plucky Bytes, Campfire Cabal, Volition, and Free Radical Design) just in the past 2 years and divested 3 of them (Foxglove Studios, Vermila Studios, and Goose Byte).
It is always possible there could be actual closures, but with the way MS has been with their studios, they're not very trigger happy on closing anything.
Sure, they will sack people by the thousands, but hey, at least they don't say the studios are closed.
Layoffs happen. You would be delusional to believe otherwise, especially with acquisitions and divestitures.
Embracer lays off and closes studios.
Layoffs happen, but over 10000? Followed by 2000 the following year? By the same gigantic corporation that registered record valuation?
Excusing greed is delusional.
Every single large tech company laid people off after the pandemic's climax was over with. I'm not saying that 10000 isn't huge or anything like that, not excusing it either, but everyone over hired during the pandemic. Keep in mind that was its largest since 2015 (i think) and then the 1900+ now was from the finishing of the acquisition of ABK. It's not nonsensical layoffs that happen strictly because of underperformance a la Embracer. Microsoft hasn't yet closed anything down because of underperformance, people thought they would do it to Arkane Austin after the flop that was Redfall and they never did.
Everyone is greedy, even Sony. Hence the UK class action lawsuit going on right now over its storefront and the limitation of where you can buy their software.
That's a bizarre read of the situation - TFB wanted out and MS said yeah, fine, go see the world, and hey let's hook up again in future...? This doesn't happen.
It seems highly likely that MS wanted to shutter what was left of TFB and they instead asked if they could be set loose to try to go it on their own rather than face the kind of fate that spells redundancy or being broken apart and absorbed into the greater mass. Net result a 'win' both sides - MS avoid PR disaster of shuttering one of the studios talked up as having huge potential under MS after the ABK buyout - during a time they're already taking beating after beating as they transition into a 3rd-party-first publisher rather than a platform holder that also publishes games - and TFB's existence is guaranteed if only in the short term, they get a chance to continue doing the kind of projects that work for them, not stuff dictated to them.
TFB and MS "pursuing a partnership" is a complete nothing, it's just both parties walking away on good terms, not burning any bridges, and letting you know that's how it is. If there was any value in TFB producing titles for MS they'd have made sure they stayed put like every other studio they have.
Probably only on paper, a $1 token gesture to make it legal if I had to speculate.