I am not in the position to tell people what to post and what not to post and there’s obviously not a rule against it, but never been a huge fan of people effectively RT on a forum (or even discord) like it’s their Twitter account. Like if there is information and you’re doing it to credit the source I get it, but not some random dudes opinion. We got enough opinions here.
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Flag random drivebys with no context, they’re not allowed. Low-effort drivebys have always been against TOS
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I’m assuming RT stands for re-tweet?
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I don’t want to downplay people losing their jobs, it sucks, but I was just thinking people blowing this out of proportion a bit.
It isn’t like video game development is a “stay in one place for life” sort of job. As far as I understand it, outside of a few key people in a studio, most of the workers are just hired on for projects and then are let go as their part of the project is completed and at the end almost everyone is gone. Eventually once a new project is started they hire on a bunch of people again. The majority of workers just float from project to project, sometimes the go back to the same company, sometimes not. This is why certain cities/areas become popular for game development, it’s the pool of talent that is constantly being hired/laid off.
Another point would be if Tango had a tight-knit, desired, and talented team why not go independent? Wouldn’t they have at least some publishers knocking at their door? I’d wager a significant number of core employees just decided to leave. When I say core employees I mean those permanent types who would have ownership stakes in the company (stocks/retirement). I would think those people got a BIG boost from the MS purchase and just cashed out. Also, I’m sure MS floated buyout/severance packages to different studios and maybe Tango which was between projects just took the money.
We’ll probably not hear from anyone speaking in detail about this because there was some sort of payment which then comes with an NDA of course.
What good is management for if it doesn’t…you know…manage?
Even a “generic blame management take” is still true in my eyes.
It’s so weird to me…here in this country we learnt that CEOs, managers and the likes are to be held accountable. In the US it’s always the workers who pay the price.
The overall dislike for Microsoft Gaming / Xbox is going to grow with the next round of studio closures, the June showcase is going to do nothing to change the perception of this company in the public eye.
At one point even the hardest of hardcore long time Xbox fans are going to realize that the Xbox of today has nothing to do with the Xbox of the past. At this point Xbox as a brand name is completely burnt so they’re going to ditch that name relatively soon. It has no value at all outside the US and maybe UK and Brazil.
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Arent you Aussie like me? because if so, they aren’t.
No but thanks. I take that as a compliment that my English isn’t so bad.
I’m German.
To add context: Unionization is vastly more common here, and there’s protection for workers who get laid of too.
And health insurance also doesn’t go away of you don’t have a job.
(All in comparison to everything I read about American companies of course.)
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Ah my apologies, we could very much use that here in the tech sector.
Technically the same could be said about anyone of us 
.
He creates video game documentaries for Noclip.
Out of all the ‘gaming media’ takes I have seen posted in this thread, I personally find this the most relatable.
Agreed, even if you have to shutter a studio or cut a project. You should retain talent.
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I don’t agree with the take because any other time people want to treat games as art, let the creatives cook, trust the vision, etc. In which case the goal of management is to make sure the team has the resources and time they need to create the project that they have envisioned, which appears to have been done successfully (for HFR, lol).
It’s basically suggesting that people outside the team should have more creative control and actively meddle with the vision of the project with a goal of making it more commercially viable.
I suppose they could only green light the safest of games? Which might be the way they are going unfortunately.
Though, point is moot since they claim the performance of the games were not the reasons for the closures either way.
Yeah, better make peace with not getting a direct answer from MS until someone interviews Phil. And the answer he gives will probably be evasive corporate talk that doesn’t give a real answer. 
But what needs to be said that hasn’t been said? They (Spencer/Booty/Bond) said in the business update that their main responsibility is to show growth and profit margins for their division. Booty flat out spelled it out those studios got shut down to focus on ‘high impact IPs’ elsewhere, Todd Howard said they’re looking to grow BGS to handle simultaneous Starfield, TES and Fallout development. Doesn’t take much to add 2 and 2 together.
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Hifi was a great game. What did management do wrong? Ghostwire had a contact with Sony, it couldn’t be canceled. Should Hifi have been canceled and they be tasked with making a fallout spinoff? Seriously, what do you think should have happened management wise?
Those studios closures have little to do with Zenimax’s high-impact IP imo. I don’t care what Booty’s email said lol. My post was for those who want “definitive clarity” on why the studios were closed. Which we most likely will never receive.
The official explanation is as good as any we’ll ever going to get.
Let’s say Xbox have a strong mandate to keep their employee count (~20k) constant to keep the operating costs/profit margins at a certain level, whatever that is. They’ve clearly identified the Fallout franchise as being in extremely high demand.
They’re not having a Fallout 5 in development, BGS is currently busy with Starfield and TES6. To spin up a Fallout 5 team, they’d need to add 300-400 people to their organization, but they can’t because of the mandate. Because they know for certain Fallout is a ‘high impact IP’, they’d rather sacrifice traditionally less profitable studios, not being concerned with the critical acclaim. Look at Arkane Austin - Prey bombed, Redfall bombed. Tango - TEW2 bombed, Ghostwire bombed, HFR didn’t set the world on fire either. Both studios were pitching their next projects and would need to staff up. With those criteria, they were the first on the chopping block.
It could be that my read on the situation is completely wrong and the real reasons are different. But I doubt we’ll ever find out via official channels or from Phil Spencer’s mouth.
It’s sad, but it is what it is. Prey 2017 is in my top 10 games of all time FWIW.
Someone could expect management to know what will and won’t be successful on the market and “guide” their creative vision towards something that will be successful.
Even then, I have to imagine that level of management happens within the studio itself.
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So the only option is as soon as the deal closed, they should have canceled Hifi rush. The game that is the reason everyone is so upset about, never should have existed in the first place?
new tom warren article was opened and i regret reading it once more.
Its says the higher ups are still considering porting Gears to playstation. Yet again, this is going to kill hardware and they are too blinded by greed to see whats happening.
It’s like they do not care about anything hardware or flagship experience related.
Also, Tom just seems to love tossing more fuel to an already existing fire by mentioning more games being ported to rival console. He most really hate Xbox if he keep bringing it up constantly to hardcore gamers.
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Appreciated!
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