It seems a lot of the people laidoff are young. It can be hard on those because it’s their first time going through this. I worked in the games industry in the 90’s and you just get use to the constant changes. Then you realize you can get a job at MS/Amazon/Google for 3 times the pay so people eventually jump ship from the gaming industry. This is my biggest concern about the gaming industry. Why would anyone want to work in it if you have a family (you can make so much more outside)?
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Been a while since they have done this and usually revolve with PS. When this occurs, you know it’s serious.
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https://x.com/deeketweak/status/1719865525973475351?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
Wonder if Jim knows this risk…
GamingBolt is one of the few sites that rated Starfield a 10/10 while giving Spider Man 2 a 9.0/10. They know which game is superior. 
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I would say there a couple of differences there. The first is Microsoft want a third party store on Android and IOS so need some base apps to put on there which ABK does gives them. Secondly King is a massive revenue/profit generator something we are learning that Destiny doesn’t seem to do
I think one of the problems is that Microsoft still get judged by decisions made pre satya nadella when things were run in a very different way. If you look at the purchases that Nadella has made like Mojang, LinkedIn and github, they’ve all flourished and grown massively both in staff count and revenue. The Nuance, zenimax and ABK deals are still pretty recent buys so a little difficult to judge but if I’m not mistaken Zenimax has seen a growth in employee numbers.
Edit: I also forgot about the $13bn they’ve invested into OpenAI for 49% of the company which not only has boosted their own AI initiatives but recent reports are that there may be a public offering valuing the company at $80-90bn
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I see a lot of “its not ethical to pile on” takes. I mean yeah, its not. But why do you realize this now? Will you remember these ethics in the future?
I will.
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Marathon may be good or bad, but stop the stupid twitter reporting, please.
While there could be truth to this, I will play good and say it’s early in development, so anything could change. The game is now expected 2025, so they have a lot of time to work on.
There’s a weird idea in gaming that a Good Game will be Good from the very moment the basic idea is sketched out on a notepad. The idea that a game might only come together, like any project, at some point later in the process is not really considered.
Of course, this doesn’t always happen, and sometimes things are irretrievable, but it’s not safe to say anything certain til you’re playing the thing.
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I recall first online comment about Metroid Prime talking about an empty boring game.
I’m still waiting for the Washington Post to follow up on this story…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/02/01/bungie-sony-buyout-destiny-2-developers/
You will be waiting awhile.
Only praise, no critique for Sony
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To be fair, Marathon was never some multiplayer arena shooter so I have no idea why they bothered to use the name if they’re not going to do anything remotely similar to the original game…
That’s my Bungie/Sony fanboy litmus test; as an OG Marathon fan (literally one of the only games I could play on the Mac at the time), I was pretty appalled by that reveal, and if you see someone saying they’re also “OG Marathon fans” and they’re drooling over this, chances are they’re a fanboy. There’s literally nothing that sets the title apart from the myriad of arena shooters and it has absolutely nothing to do with Marathon, so yeah…
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Wasn’t it “confirmed” by sources the layoffs were a result of the huge miss on their forecasts?
Just look at the major sites and look how little ANY of the myriad of news that paint a clear pattern of trouble at Playstation has actually shown up… people want to pretend like propaganda apparatuses don’t exist in the gaming media but you can see the same exact lies-by-omission and misinformation across every industry (not to go off topic but just look at all the protests calling for a ceasefire that none of the major outlets have shown - as they’ve been trying to paint a very colonizer-centric/racist viewpoint). The same shit happens here; if that wasn’t the case we would have seen an equal amount of “Sony first-party in trouble” articles (hell, there hasn’t been a single one that I’ve seen) or at the very least some recognition of the current events with Sony being named as the cause for a change; again, I’ve provided plenty of examples just this week and through the years, where the language used for Sony-related blips is much more flowery, relevant-to-the-topic, etc.
Edit: the timing of my post couldn’t have been more perfect
So again, there can’t be any positive news for Xbox without a dig and everything is a zero-sum where they want Sony to be seen as “the underdog” and good guy.
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They were given 2 billion dollars for staff retention… there’s no way to cut it, this is absolutely disgusting.
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Y’all remember a couple months back. When the CMA blocked the deal and Redfall disappointed folks. There were a ton of articles about how Xbox was in shambles and even pro Xbox folks were complaining. I wonder where that same energy is for this?
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The sad thing is, PS had a good shot at GaaS if it was built up from PS2 era. They had Socom, Twisted Metal, and GT, which is still going. They had Killzone, Resistance, MAG, and many more, but they ended them. They had ingredients, but instead, they went full single player heavy. Nothing against that, but if you’re planning to join the GaaS train, usually you have veteran or IP that is known for it to fill you in.
You screwed yourself.
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