This morning, Microsoft “announced” another round of layoffs and studio closures in the latest cold corporate growth-chasing move of the video game industry.
I say “announced” because the company no longer uses their PR team to put these messages out. At least, not directly. Instead, they write a carefully crafted internal email message that they know will leak to the press (like IGN) the second it goes out. These emails often read like the press blasts they used to send out in the open, but the added layer of obfuscation gives them a chance to come out and say “how dare you look at our ‘internal’ document,” and then they can adjust the messaging further.
This current round of stupid studio cuts includes the closure of Arkane Austin, the shuttering of Tango Gameworks, and the complete shutdown of Mighty Doom and its developer Alpha Dog Games. Some support studios for The Elder Scrolls Online also got shoved together forcefully. All of these companies are under the Bethesda umbrella, which makes this read like lines on a graph in that specific wing of Microsoft didn’t cross the other lines so now they must pay the price. But hey, at least Starfield got some maps?
