Microsoft lays off 1,900 ABK & XGS employees/ Ybarra left Blizzard/ Odyssey cancelled

[CallMeCraig]

@Searsy82

I enjoy how incapable people seem to be at looking beyond “today”.

These layoffs in the thousands happen ‘today’ and no prospect of cheaper money again in like 3 years will help them.

The current landscape for new indepentend studios with big ambitions is just very different than the last 5 years.

[Searsy82]

@CallMeCraig

These layoffs in the thousands happen ‘today’ and no prospect of cheaper money again in like 3 years will help them.

The current landscape for new indepentend studios with big ambitions is just very different than the last 5 years.

You are jumping from point A to point Z and skipping everything in between. Nowhere did I argue that they go from being fired to owning an independent studio overnight cranking out AAA bangers overnight. If you need to setup disingenuous arguments to support your position, have at it.

I guess since there is no hope for any of these people, they should all go be used car salesman.

I generally try to assume that when a suggestion is made that people venture out for themselves that the audience here is in tune enough with the business to understand that there are logical steps to get from going out on your own to eventually attaining blockbuster status and that something like that doesn’t need to be explained in detail. There is a reason I specifically mentioned other smaller independent titles during the course of the discussion.

[CallMeCraig]

@Searsy82

…and skipping everything in between. Nowhere did I argue that they go from being fired to owning an independent studio overnight cranking out AAA bangers overnight. If you need to setup disingenuous arguments to support your position, have at it. I guess since there is no hope for any of these people, they should all go be used car salesman. I generally try to assume that when a suggestion is made that people venture out for themselves that the audience here is in tune enough with the business to understand that there are logical steps to get from going out on your own to eventually attaining blockbuster status and that something like that doesn’t need to be explained in detail. There is a reason I specifically mentioned other smaller independent titles during the course of the discussion.

why these personal attacks?

You said this so i just assumed you were talking about creating their own big studio like it happend on multiple occasions the last couple of years (because borrowing money was cheap).

@Searsy82

1000s of their staff can leave, start a new studio, and create “Beckon of Responsibility: Current Combat”

[Searsy82]

@CallMeCraig

Nothing is meant as a personal attack, if it came off that way I apologize.

Yes I did say that, and perhaps it was unclear, “can leave” is referring to people still under the employ of the company, not the recently laid off employees, and was responding to the comments about labor protections directly above it. Specifically that the nature of at will employment in the United States is a two way street. Anyone is free to leave any position to pursue whatever they want whenever they want.

Also, “can leave” is not to be taken as all of them rise up and leave the company all at once.

[CallMeCraig]

@Searsy82

Nothing is meant as a personal attack, if it came off that way I apologize.

Yes I did say that, and perhaps it was unclear, “can leave” is referring to people still under the employ of the company, not the recently laid off employees, and was responding to the comments about labor protections directly above it. Specifically that the nature of at will employment in the United States is a two way street. Anyone is free to leave any position to pursue whatever they want whenever they want.

Also, “can leave” is not to be taken as all of them rise up and leave the company all at once.

Oh i misunderstood then

[Hue]

[Searsy82]

@CallMeCraig

Oh i misunderstood then

No worries. I tend to post during the workday while I am working on other things and can be prone to lacking clarity because of it.

[CallMeCraig]

i miss Macho Man

[nrXic]

Another great article on the topic.

Nearly 25,000 tech workers were laid off in the first weeks of 2024. Why is...

“There is a herding effect in tech,” said Jeff Shulman, a professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, who follows the tech industry. “The layoffs seem to be helping their stock prices, so these companies see no reason to stop.”

But experts say for most large and publicly-traded tech firms, the layoff trend this month is aimed at satisfying investors.

Shulman adds: “They’re getting away with it because everybody is doing it. And they’re getting away with it because now it’s the new normal,” he said. “Workers are more comfortable with it, stock investors are appreciating it, and so I think we’ll see it continue for some time.”

[Sparda3g]

@nrXic

…Another great article on the topic.

“There is a herding effect in tech,” said Jeff Shulman, a professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, who follows the tech industry. “The layoffs seem to be helping their stock prices, so these companies see no reason to stop.”

But experts say for most large and publicly-traded tech firms, the layoff trend this month is aimed at satisfying investors. Shulman adds: “They’re getting away with it because everybody is doing it. And they’re getting away with it because now it’s the new normal,” he said. “Workers are more comfortable with it, stock investors are appreciating it, and so I think we’ll see it continue for some time.”

That quote about layoff helping stock is sadly true.

[Freed]

@nrXic

…Another great article on the topic.

“There is a herding effect in tech,” said Jeff Shulman, a professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, who follows the tech industry. “The layoffs seem to be helping their stock prices, so these companies see no reason to stop.”

But experts say for most large and publicly-traded tech firms, the layoff trend this month is aimed at satisfying investors. Shulman adds: “They’re getting away with it because everybody is doing it. And they’re getting away with it because now it’s the new normal,” he said. “Workers are more comfortable with it, stock investors are appreciating it, and so I think we’ll see it continue for some time.”

Government can do so some regulating here idk

[JonnJonzz]

@Freed

Government can do so some regulating here idk

I definitely feel like if a candidate was to run on stuff like that, it would be a winning platform.

Having things like stop making employees forced out of their job with a police escort, benefits are still active after you leave, heads of the company must give stock benefits to the employees they just fired, heads of the company lose government subsidies, heads of the company must be given a massive pay cut, you name it.

There is so many things that could and should be charged, that it truly is insane you don’t have people going into office, to do just that.

[nrXic]

@JonnJonzz

There is so many things that could and should be charged, that it truly is insane you don’t have people going into office, to do just that.

I think know why this is but it’ll veer into politics so I’ll just say that it isn’t “insane” but rather it is “impossible”.

But to add to your ideas: the article mentions the fact that these companies are sitting on a ton of cash. It would be great if investors saw the investment of this cash into the business as a good thing. One way to make that happen is govt intervention and regulations.

Also, penalize companies for firing via reducing tax benefits and so on. This would make them think twice before going on a hiring spree or a firing spree.

Taxes for corps used to be sky high and now they’re rock bottom. But if they went sky high again with all of these incentives to enable them to only pay the rock bottom levels they do now, change might be more possible.

[Vonterribad (Matt)]

@nrXic

…Another great article on the topic.

“There is a herding effect in tech,” said Jeff Shulman, a professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business, who follows the tech industry. “The layoffs seem to be helping their stock prices, so these companies see no reason to stop.”

But experts say for most large and publicly-traded tech firms, the layoff trend this month is aimed at satisfying investors. Shulman adds: “They’re getting away with it because everybody is doing it. And they’re getting away with it because now it’s the new normal,” he said. “Workers are more comfortable with it, stock investors are appreciating it, and so I think we’ll see it continue for some time.”

There was a similar article to this with last years layoffs. Companies follow suite when they see layoffs, the counter point made was they end up hiring again 1-2 years at a higher pay rate, which makes it a rather stupid circle of hiring firing and causing emotional damage in the process.

[MJ_INC]

@raihous

Interesting article. Now there’s also something that Americans should understand too: companies like Microsoft are getting much cheaper resources in Europe. It’s harder now to sustain the cost of development teams in the USA when they compete with studios in Poland or even France, England. To put things in perspective, Toys For Bob and Arkane Lyon had the same number of employees in 2020, except that an employee in the San Francisco area makes (at least) twice as much money as an employee in Lyon. So in the end, a silly little game like Crash Team Rumble ends up being twice more costly than Deathloop. It’s easy to predict the death of most Californian studios.

I have a feeling that we could see a different approach in how game studios work. Using more support studios instead of permanent/contract workers. Paying them a fixed fee for a certain amount of work done that can be easily budgeted and cheaper. There more and more studios doing this in third world countries that have much lower wages.

[Knottian (Daniel)]

Gotta love another method the media uses to knock on the bias: repeated reporting of the same negative story. Engadget posted this two hours ago as if it was new, and not the same layoff they reported on five days ago…

[SteadyMercury]

@Jorge_Alexander_Acos

I’m still wondering what promped ABK to hire 7k dev over the span of 2 years…well yes but did the COD machine became that unstable the they needed that many devs working on them? Insane numbers really.

Tech in general went completely nuts with the hiring over COVID. It was unsustainable and the decision makers who decided to jack headcounts and wages through the roof should have been looking at how the scale up and back down would be managed… just like all the commodity based industries have to do already.

Instead they basically YOLO’d it on some weird Hopium fueled dream that the COVID based increases in tech related spending would be permanent… they weren’t and now ordinary people are being hurt because the leadership at these companies equate being leadership at Google/MSFT/Apple etc. with being superior human beings who couldn’t possibly learn from any other part of the economy.

[MasterChief]

@FacelessSamurai

Nothing scummy about Xbox leadership, wtf are you on about?

Lmao wut… what Booty said is the definition of scummy, as for Phil, he has been the head of Xbox for like a decade now, you don’t stay at the top that long without being scummy, sorry, this is why I don’t romanticize these executives.

@FacelessSamurai

This is the layoff thread, you know what you are going to get lol. I just try and let the hyperbolic stuff pass by.

Nothing hyperbolic about it, the statement was gross, I’m sure he had the option of saying nothing and he didn’t there were much better things he could’ve said.

@Freed

You don’t get to stay as an executive in a big US corp without being scummy. You can like Phil for what he did for the brand and things that you liked, for the fact that he engages and plays games, but he’s a big executive at the biggest (or 2nd, idk) tech corporation in the US/world, he isn’t in that position unless he has signed on and initiated multiple cold and horrible decisions that were not in the interest of anyone but his and his company’s bottom line.

Exactly! you said it best.

[nrXic]

@SteadyMercury

Tech in general went completely nuts with the hiring over COVID. It was unsustainable and the decision makers who decided to jack headcounts and wages through the roof should have been looking at how the scale up and back down would be managed… just like all the commodity based industries have to do already.

One of my biggest recent regrets is turning down an offer from Meta to work on VR stuff. Sure, they were let go nearly a year later but apparently they did NOTHING and were simply hired so they wouldn’t work for anyone else. And those people made a ton of money ($80K USD goes a long way in Canada).

I never wanted to think about it again but I’m mentioning it to demonstrate how insane it was. They were literally ensuring talent wouldn’t work for anyone else.