Microsoft Fires MORE People - Inside Games Roundup

[@Rudykawa]

No games cancelled or projects shut down. We just fired 650 people and will make the rest work 3 times more with same payment.

[@lordpoundcake2317]

Sounds like the Blizzard mato. MS has learned well.

[@dimfre4kske67]

What they are probably doing is cutting support staff, HR, legal, accounting and possibly a few layers of management and using MS's existing departments to do it for them.

[@Rudykawa]

@@dimfre4kske67 Exactly. Before the HR had to handle X employees. Now they have to handle 2X employees without the help of the HR that came with said new employees.

[@AndyofCT]

Time to put a 25% tax on all mergers and acquisitions to offset the increase in unemployment claims that will result.

[@arcadeportal32]

Makes me want to call a congressmen to try to make that a reality, messed up you know they are going to layoff people due to a merger/do so because of one, and the people working there are just left worried if they will have a job afterwards with sometime no reimbursement if it happened. This is why I am happy I never got into the tech industry like I wanted to when I was younger... sounds like absolutely no job security from what I am seeing.

[@trashsombra4411]

More like 89

[@John-PaulHunt-q3z]

After the govt failed to stop Microsoft over the azure cloud gaming merger over Activision blizzard? DONT COUNT ON IT!

[@harouchr]

It's not about money

[@gcrackerz]

Unemployment benefits are paid for from funds the unemployed person has already paid into the system while they were employed. It's just getting access to payments from a pot of your own money.

[@SUDAGANGTV]

12:42 Dear God, PLEASE let them bring back the T.H.U.G. (Tony Hawk's Underground) series!!!

[@WillyFresh92]

Phil Phil Phil Phil Phil Phil Phil, Phil Guy the Layoffs Guy

[@Supramedical68]

Phil: layoffs rulessss!!

[@John-PaulHunt-q3z]

The blood letting continues.

[@TheBucknative]

Good one!

[@Why_It]

Phil buys, then lays-off guys!

[@mikevollmer2797]

Continues to sound like the Activision/blizzard/king deal was straight up a miserable deal that has resulted in nothing positive for the gaming sphere and the talented people who actually make games. WHO FUCKING KNEW? Everyone with a brain that's who.

[@steel5897]

Redditors kept saying it would be good because Bobby Kotick is the literal devil and they'd get rid of him. Seriously that was the consensus on gaming subreddits. I'll never tire of just how wrong the internet is about everything 99% of the time.

[@AutismoGamer]

All the layoffs were made by corporate XD It's just so they can get a paycheck that allows them to fly their private jets all over. Why pay workers when your paycheck will lower? Just fire the one's you hardly care for.

[@ri3sch]

On all my comments that said it was going to make things worse, I would get replies saying that it would be fine and that I was a an Xbox hater. Consolidation is bad when it comes to large companies. All it does is remove competition for innovation and retaining and hiring good talent. It leads to higher prices for worse products

[@hoshi314]

Iirc they bough them to avoid unionization right? That failed too on their part since the employees ended unionizing

[@Rocinante808]

Gaming companies learned all the bad lessons: Xbox shut down their only Japanese studio, $250 charge for PS Pro gets barely better backgrounds?! Eve devs invest into Crypto! Stop giving Star Citizen all of your savings!

[@indiscretion.]

The Pro price was never the problem, its priced at superfans and the damn thing will still sale out regardless. It was the missing disc drive and stand. And before, games, the PS4 Pro had no notable games that took advantage besides Monster Hunter World; at least PS5 Pro has GTA 6.

[@louisdellalucca8969]

Good on Annapurna employees for giving the finger to the bosses! Love the show! Can’t wait for DR:DR!!!!

[@J-Vill]

Microsoft has more major layoffs and special edition controllers then games coming out

[@pic3569]

It makes no sense that these idiot executives keep making horrible decisions, and talented employees are the ones that suffer.

[@popeskii]

Eat the rich!

[@listofromantics]

. . . The Aristocrats! Only under Capitalism can the leadership of a company TOTALLY FAIL and be handsomely rewarded, even if the executives / CEOs are fired. #GoldenParachute

[@F0rger513]

we live under an economic model that prioritizes profits over people. every decision they make is either to cover their own ass or make number go up. Sometimes it's to cover their ass after failing to make number go up.

[@spencerpilarski5537]

I was part of this. Me and most of the team working on Warzone Mobile got laid off on Thursday :(

[@icantspeck1497]

Day 3 of asking for Brian's recording framerate to match Law + Bruce 🙏 Great round-up as always.

[@theata]

There's a wise old saying, "A donkey can carry a sack of gold, but it will still be a donkey."

[@eon5323]

What a stupid saying 😂😂

[@jakeman52]

The fact that console players are still paying to play multiplayer on top of 80$+ game releases is so wild. And yet still mass layoffs every few months.

[@martydastooge]

Its all we know.. no other way

[@117MasterSpartan]

What else we gonna do?

[@indiscretion.]

$70 game releases? If it isn't a day one must-have AAA entry from a well known franchise, most people who have the money get it no issue; those who dont just wait 3-6 months for them to be $30-40 dollars. Direct that confusion at Nintendo fanboys who pay upfront $60-70 with no discount for the first 2 years after release, or if you're lucky a discounted price of $50 on a holiday sale. Pay the $20+ for the 2004 era internet service and dont ask any questions.

[@myco2408]

not to mention that you don’t get the vast majority of content with that $80 game anymore lmao. battle pass, gacha, ‘premium’ purchasables outside of those systems… yall are getting positively farmed. you just gonna let them do that?

[@SilentOcalypz]

Friendly reminder to stand up, stretch, and hydrate.

[@TotalProductions123]

You should never feel bad for billionaires. Read up on how Steve Jobs died I do not give a single kahoot about it.

[@lambdachi107-gamingandmusi2]

It's so sad Steve Jobs died of Ligma...

[@elijahtiemens5532]

Who the hell is Steve Jobs?

[@lambdachi107-gamingandmusi2]

@@elijahtiemens5532 Ligma Balz

[@tomburress4928]

@@elijahtiemens5532the co-founder and CEO of Apple along with helping to start Pixar Animation Studios. He was a great salesman who had great long term vision for what Apple could be but also a massive egotistical self-centered arsehole (the guy was most notorious for denying being the father of his first daughter for years despite knowing it was his kid) and almost caused Apple to nearly bankrupting and destroying the company with a couple really bad products by being inflexible or unwilling to compromise until being ousted from the company for a few years. He was eventually brought back and helped to turn Apple into what it is today with moving the company into making things like the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and iTunes/Apple Store in conjunction with Mac computers leading to the closed off Apple ecosystem we now have. He also was the one who pioneered the weird “eccentric” Silicon Valley tech company entrepreneur that everyone since has tried to copy like Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and basically every tech company since. But people also tend to ignore that without people like Wozniak, Andy Herzfeld, Wendell Brown, Jef Raskin, and numerous other engineers Jobs would’ve not been nearly as successful as he became. A very fascinating and controversial figure. Sorry for the long post lol

[@ImmanentGodBlues]

Wow who woulda thought that buying a video game company for 69 BILLIONS would be a ludicrous dumb decision... Wow im so shocked and surprised

[@ArchThaBoss]

I wonder if the guy in charge who’s sign off on all these decisions that lead to these failures decided to take a cut in his salary as compensation for his poor performance……..or was it only the little guys who did as they were told who get their lives uprooted???

[@MrPhish]

The Activision Blizzard purchase is one of the worst decisions that Microsoft has made.

[@coshvjicujmlqef6047]

The problem is that microsoft has no existence on mobile due to winphone shutdown. Then you end up they buy game companies for some mobile presense and that is shit

[@mrthewhite2620]

It's bad for us and workers, but it's a great decision for ms and the "line go up" crowd.

[@coshvjicujmlqef6047]

i hope msft do more layoffs. they need to layoff 50k employees

[@Call555JackChop]

Imaging how much the PS6 is gonna cost if Xbox bows out of the console race

[@mrthewhite2620]

$1k, it's gonna be $1k

[@Arkreiner]

thanks for bringing back the inside games roundup and keeping it going!

[@bananasean5145]

These are dark times indeed.

[@lonewolffang]

EA: That's right, Microsoft. You're getting the hang of it. Keep this up and you might take our #1 spot. Someday....

[@PillboxBollocks]

So is games development Gig work now or what?

[@FellaGuy2]

Warhammer is great, just spend 15 to 20 min on a KZbin lore video to understand the tip of the iceberg and you will be fine. I say this as a fan of Warhammer who *GASP* doesn't actually mess around with the miniatures. I just like the books and video games.

[@DrunkWallaby]

Good thing I get those email from the INSIDE GAMES PATREON™️ since KZbin ain’t showing me the boys in my sub feed for whatever reason.

[@StallionHangover]

This was already known when the Activation deal was made. No point having 4 people for the same role. Clean out house, simply put.

[@krobb1290]

FYI that show that Tony Hawk was on was called Last Meals where the host interviews people while they eat what that person would want to be their last meal. It's very good.

[@nicemarmot3681]

The people from Annapurna are a fantastic team and I can't wait to see what they do in the future.

[@Garbage_Golem]

Very psyched to see Brian Gaar come to us live from inside an IKEA woven basket, what is that the Flarmalaraland or the Flimalaraland?

[@damiensadventure]

Fun Fact: Tony Hawk covered Head Like A Hole from NiN while skateboarding. It's on YT.

[@XavierNinety]

Xbox secret move: fire as many people to get as close to $700 number for the PS5 Pro

[@LS1056]

I bet the former Annapurna staff and executives are going independent and making their own studio. You have a functional team with functional and industry vets, this could be a successful team that's independent

[@jam8489]

wow now i am not even sure about getting and xbox

[@chrisrobinson6753]

I just realized that most of the games I actually play are either free to play or I already purchased on PC at some point... apparently you can still play most of them without an Xbox Live subscription so instead of charging me $20 for Ultimate they can have $0 instead!

[@krisseekins5864]

I know my opinion is tiny, Tony Hawk is the chillest coolest person, I got to meet him a few years ago!

[@screamingfurby]

Thanks for not laying off Brian

[@zombiehampster1397]

imagine that, infinite growth isn't viable...

[@as95ms98]

I'm sure these layoffs won't also coincide with millions in Executive bonuses and raises right? RIGHT?

[@mrthewhite2620]

Staffing up during covid was not seen as a mistake by any company. It was intentional, and they all knew it was temporary. They just dont care if they have to lay people off in a year or two cause they got their value out of them regardless.

[@matanm6829]

I just thanked MS for their smart business move by canceling my Xbox subscription that i wasn't using for a while now. Thank you for reminding me.

[@shurikenhead555]

This recession is hitting hard

[@TheWtfanime]

My friend and I were talking and we believe that we're seeing a trend. The big video game companies (microsoft) keep buying up studios because they saw how good the studios were doing, but then they keep cutting jobs because they think that they'll make them triple A level money since they spent billion dollars acquiring them. So... that only means that long term we're going to get less and less good quality video games. My friend and I are thinking that the next wave of games is gonna be shorter double A games... until the companies buy those up and the process repeats itself. We had a good few years of video games, but we've been in a rut for a little bit now and it's only gonna get worse. Brian kinda said the same thing too.

[@stug5041]

Remaking more thps games is a slam dunk. It’s just levels, the gameplay engine is done

[@Bowmanganie]

After Xbox announced the tiers I got off Ultimate and went with Core and back to buying a game if I want to play it. $20 a month is too much just to have access to a few games that I would actually play. The only new game I have purchased this year has been Space Marine 2, and worth the $70 I paid for it. Anything else I just bide my time and wait for deep discounts. I play ESO daily and still have not purchased their last DLC, the Gold Road, just cause I know it will be 1/2 price in a few months.

[@MitsuteruCrowe]

I work at a company that is not related to video games but has the same types of issues. There have been hundreds of people laid off across the company and the work all remains the same. Except... the ones that are left have the task of what would have been done by 5 different people. I'm not going to lie... likely some of it is justified. But currently some of us have a workload that is impossible to do unless you put in 10 to 14 hour shifts. In my personal experience, if you try and fight it is heavily implied that you will be fired. So far HR does nothing and it simply is what it is. Of course I will be moving on by the end of the year and so have many, many people already. I don't kow about business and have no idea what their end goal is... but what I've seen so far is that when they hire a new person, since they don't have the context of what it was before, they gladly put in the hours. So it seems the companies will just be doing what they do since someone is always willing to do it anyway.

[@Henbot]

I was really looking forward to their Blade Runner game. Sadge.

[@Zero_Zone.]

Is this Lord of the Rings but instead of an eagle it is a Hawk that comes down and saves the news day?

[@JellyoooDonut3]

Dang it does that mean if i dont pay for premium i wont be able to play Bejeweled2 , nba live 2019, peggle 1&2 and Zuma ! ToT

[@joseMgarcia0711]

They really should have focused on making good games instead of buying companies at absurd prices.

[@MadScientistGuild]

How about no merger unless you can properly merge. We would not accept a car merging and cutting off a chunk of the other car.

[@paynexkiller]

MORE people?! Agh.

[@davidarnbrister5436]

I'm starting to think maybe candy crush didn't make as much money as we thought

[@_nickthered]

Because they couldn't spin off all these people to make more games and tech

[@ShanGamer1981]

Every merger kicks people to the curb. Corps treat people like expendable numbers.

[@Peter-lj2fv]

I cancelled pc too now and now trying to acquire all the games i actually want to own. I guess im not fine with not owning my games

[@Henbot]

Ninja Theory be lucky if they are, considering they wasted so much money from Microsoft on Bleeding Edge instead of Senua. MS just doing what they do, and it surprises me people are still surprised. This is what MS always does.

[@TRIAL_ndERROR]

I’m so glad steam/valve exists on the pc and i sincerely hope they never get acquired

[@RhoadsLocke]

*Tony Hawk 900's into the chat

[@AutismoGamer]

I hear you calling. . . Yada Yada Yada

[@Henbot]

Star Craft was rip off W40K btw Brian. Blizzard got given the licence to do W40K, and then they took the money to make Star Craft

[@J.a.v.i]

5:51 HAHAHA I can't believe some people fell for that. I knew it was BS the moment it was announced. Nintendo Switch can't handle COD.

[@TheJankyTank]

Brian actually looked and sounded sober today

[@MWTravesty]

Did they remaster the tony hawk underground collection yet? That's probably it.

[@samjames3947]

What's Starfield? But seriously havent heard about it for months.

[@Guancous]

This is why the man is in the Hall of Fame

[@Penance2277]

Phil Spencer's annual bonus needs to come from somewhere, right?

[@jays.6843]

Meanwhile, jndie games continue to go hard in ways AAA games just can't manage. Stop paying $70 for ten hours of gameplay when you could pay $30 for Rimworld and actually support someone.

[@eliclements3562]

“Three years of lore you need to read up on first”. I’ve been force feeding my brain 40K lore for the past decade and still don’t see the end in sight. Just enjoy the giant homo-erotic super soldiers and don’t worry about the rest.

[@the_panos]

Ah the armchair business experts in the comments are pretty funny and depressing. They really think that after an acquisition of this size "trimming people in the same roles" makes sense rather than reducing quality, increasing stress and throwing cogs into the gears of smooth operation across the board. Also "try to find a game Annapurna has actually developed! They're a publisher!" oh man. Best case scenario is these are teenagers who will learn as they get older. Worst case is these are middle manager who will keep things getting worse because they refuse to see beyond a spreadsheet.

[@Sluggwurth]

Did Microsoft just not to the math on how many salaries they were taking on when they skirted by anti-trust laws with the acquisition? Like what did they think was gonna happen Starfield would be Skyrim 2? …oh

[@Rudykawa]

they knew. they did the math. they are not amateurs. the layoffs were planned from day 1. It was not a course correction or an "oopsie, we made less than we thought". Starfield could've made GTAV levels of money, the layoffs would still happen.

[@cfents8660]

What’s the total amount of lay offs in Phil’s reign of terror? Why hasn’t his head rolled?

[@DanielRhea-cf6fc]

I just make a new email and buy gamepass for $1.00 for 2 weeks. I haven’t paid full price for gamepass in years lol

[@satori3000]

Eff MS their profits are to 15%, WTF. I want a new OS so bad.

[@EastyyBlogspot]

Microsoft....for the amount of developers and resources they have the output is really lacking not just in quality but quantity to

[@jyuen]

Trying hard, and people never deserve to lose jobs. It's great to see Activision Blizzard failing year after year

[@BBAANNAANNAA1]

Just canceled my game pass subsciption. waste of money at this point. I never even get around to playing any games on it. I would usually just demo stuff on it

[@hoshi314]

Iirc PC game pass is better than game pass standard right? Oof that's gonna be rough

[@carlosu7097]

P. U. What smells like BIG business?

[@GMMXX80]

They're THAT scared of PlayStation. The bid way, way to high to keep PlayStation from undercutting them. Sony turned their own playbook on them snagging exclusive timed content on PlayStation from Call of Duty and took that away from them but, interestingly, Sony didn't do that with Destiny. Sony allowed other consoles to have content the same day and date and to this day still do, while Xbox took their game (MLB The Show and is giving it away, which is not profitable by any means in the least for PlayStation. Good ol Phil knew exactly what he was doing when he went crying to the MLB.) But that's why they went after Activision. But, it didn't pan out like they thought. The money didn't rake in like they thought it would and the IPs now sit dormant because they don't have the money to develop anything from them oh, but HA HA HA! We kept them away from you Sony. We took away your exclusive Call of Duty content...... Which Call of Duty could crash and burn like Halo did and Sony could come across a developer at any time that just does it better, or, Killzone could arise again with help from former Activision devs sick and tired of Microsoft's antics wonder if they'll keep their job and create a game to crush Call of Duty and cripple Microsoft yet again. All of this was to try and stop PlayStation when it was how Xbox was treating customers. Treating them like just another number instead of people and this is what happens. Yet people still are somehow supporting them after all of this, maybe people just like to hear themselves complain, or it stirs up drama to get them views and make them some money and they actually don't care and aren't doing anything to fight it like saying we've had enough and bury it. If the film industry can strike, so can the games industry and it's fans alikw

[@BF-uh4rz]

XBoned

[@dacyndaquil]

I remember all the fanboys saying this would be great but all I’ve seen is lay off after layoff smh

[@ng_canadian]

Microsoft and Sony are really trying to get that shittiest company of the year award

[@RobertShane83]

Covid was the best. 😢

[@SphereProGaming]

WHAT!!!!!????

[@abdullahabdulrahman3856]

That's shitbox(Xbox) for you

[@ieyke]

Xbox isn't just slowly circling the drain faster and faster and faster. At this point it's a whirlpool, building into a maelstrom of destruction. The Xbox bad news is just unending.

[@mrmagickkarp6132]

Yay white dude Bryan!

[@WARLORD626]

At this point Microsoft you litteraly don't even know what your* doing anywhere.

[@PenguinDust1969]

Microsoft just fired 650 corporate and support employees...Annapurna just lost its games core leadership. Sounds to me like Megan Ellison has 650 potential employees. It's sad that the 650 lost their Microsoft-Activision jobs, but new opportunities present themselves each day. And, whenever two corporations merge there is redundancy in roles. Eliminating redundancy would account for some of the 650 layoffs especially since most appear to have been on the Activision--Blizzard side. It's not just about getting the numbers up although that is part of it, too.

[@thelordyourgod]

Madonna was never sexy

[@theyreEatingthedogs]

A whole generation of people beg to differ.

[@skeletonrocker]

It's almost like the economy IS and has been in shambles

[@radil]

That Xbox Pass squeeze reminds me when inside games tried to squeeze the ever loving-hell of their fans in their Patreon tiers.

[@danjacksonguitar3701]

Hopefully they fired every member of the cod warzone mobile "support" staff.

[@ethanguest6762]

Bruce 'I told you so' for the most obvious predictions for a subscription service.

[@Chooch1080]

F the billionaire hoarder class. I hope the Annapurna team makes a co-op and makes all staff from management to janitor union, and a shareholder.

[@Chooch1080]

Great reporting as always y'all. Shoutouts to the whole production team 🤙🏿🍻

[@MarioVelezBThinkin]

What on earth? What the hell is the landscape gonna look like in five years?!

[@MarioVelezBThinkin]

Bruce earned that ITYS. He's been saying this since it came out. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.

[@MarioVelezBThinkin]

5 second reviews should always be about games you have never played Brian! Never change.

[@ieyke]

Nintendo vs Sony vs Valve Just like it is right now. But without Xbox embarrassing themselves every 3 days. Xbox either won't exist, or it'll be a Sega - just a developer/publisher releasing games on Nintendo and PlayStation and Steam.

[@sleepysneakers8695]

Who cares

[@erikcoolblue]

If Bruce truly reads every comment then I feel it’s time I confess my love for him and Lawrence! Brucie Poo & SirLarr the great, I will love you both til I die, you got me through some of the toughest patches in my childhood and can never thank you both enough for it! Forever wishing for success and happiness in your lives that you guys have given me!

[@TheNotSure]

History repeating. It's getting to how it was with the 1st videogame crash. Bunch of consoles that don't work as promised aka "next gen", tons of games that are meh or straight up trash indie games and AAA games. Now, a no disc drive no stand $700 PS5 pro that might do 60fps for more games, depending on the developer and whenever other BS Sony will come up with.

[@nd8490]

The gaming industry has been over staffed unnecessarily for close to a decade. Good on Microsoft cleaning it up and trimming the fat. No reason a game needs 700-1000 people working on it.