Embracer Group has begun closing studios, including developer Campfire Cabal, which was formed in September of last year.
There are two reasons why all those Bethesda studios closed, and neither of them have anything to do with Bethesda (directly)...
Game Pass and Activision.
The guy confirming what we've all (well, most of us) been saying since the latest purchase.
Remember the relatively common counter that went something like "I'm sure you arm-chair CEOs know better how to run a company than the biggest company in the world"?
I mean - there's a lot to running a company for sure, but on this topic it's hard to understand how Phil and team didn't see this coming.
Honestly i think Bethesda needs to buy themselves out of zenimax/MSs hands and do their own thing, i honestly think that would fix a lot of issues and save them from a potential closure.
There's a reason they sold in the first place. And Bethesda is not closing anytime soon lol. As much as I hate the studio closures. They were all small studios 2 of them were mobile studios.
I think these are growing pains and Xbox will get back on track. But they're not getting any more passes.
I’d like to see your reaction to being growing pained out of your job after the launch of a successful product.
Ah, we can see how the Microsoft media machine works.
Every article I read now is some kind of attempt to shift the blame off Microsoft and paint them as the victims or convince people that Microsoft mistakes were just some kind unforeseeable unfortunate twist of fate.
The shills are out in full force today.
This is not at all what this article is saying. It's saying that honest and useful studios are getting closed because of big money deals elsewhere and the faults with game pass as a model.
I understand what the article is about.
It's a deflection, it's a putting the cart before the horse article.
Let me tell you how this problem wouldn't have existed in the first place.
Microsoft not creating a service funded by subsidization and having the foresight to see that it would disrupt consumer spending habit to begin with. Then not buying Bethesda and undertaking costs for a service that was already failing to pay for itself because their own expectations of Game Pass having "billions" of subscribers was unobtainable from the very start.
And if you don't think that was the case go back to the article on the day Game Pass launched and read the comments from people from day one who foresaw that this would be an unsustainable model and would cause people to stop spending in the same way.
***Microsoft not creating a service funded by subsidization and having the foresight to see that it would disrupt consumer spending habit to begin with.***
This article literally supports this opinion. He's not praising Game Pass or the ABK purchase.
This is an explanation of why it failed, there is zero blame put onto Microsoft itself.
Yes, it talks about what went wrong, but it doesn't say Microsoft shouldn't have done it. It doesn't say Phil should have foreseen this outcome and stopped before it got to this point.
"convince people that Microsoft mistakes were just some kind unforeseeable unfortunate twist of fate"
***but you're seeing the impact; all those smaller studios making really interesting games are going to fall away, simply because as good as games like Hi-Fi Rush are, they're never going to make enough money to make up that $70B hole that Xbox now has to dig itself out of.***
If you see that as support or you explicitly just want people to end their argument with "and, in conclusion, Microsoft bad" then that's on you. This article does not support Microsoft's choices and highlights the faults. Nothing it says is good about these choices, even saying that putting CoD on Game Pass would be money losing for them because they've set themselves up for failure (and not putting it on there will drop subscriber numbers like crazy, meaning their Game Pass plans were shit to begin with).
No matter how you look at it, they're saying Microsoft made decisions that hurt the bottom line, force closures, and leave Game Pass in a situation where they lose no matter what they do. It's all negative.
Christopher, if Microsoft hadn't made Game Pass and bought a bunch of publishers would this article even need to exist?
***Christopher, if Microsoft hadn't made Game Pass and bought a bunch of publishers would this article even need to exist? ***
How is this an argument to anything being discussed? This is just as valuable of an argument as "if fish had stayed in deeper waters, they wouldn't have evolved to tetrapods, adapted to shallow water and then to land, and we wouldn't even exist and have to worry about game pass at all."
You're bringing nothing to this argument and then complaining that other people are highlighting the issues with Game Pass and spending tens of billions on studios because what we should be discussing is what it would be like if Microsoft hadn't done any of that.
Well, they did do it. Now pull up your big boy pants and join in on the discussion of what that has meant for the industry since then and, especially right now, how that is affecting the industry and game studios under Microsoft. None of us are able to go back in time and change what was done.
It's greed. MS has the IP's it wants now it's dumping the studios that it's raided, MS will still make money from Tango's games unlike the people that made them. If anyone follows MS outside of gaming you'll see this is what they do, buy companies take what they want consolidate some of the workforce and shut them down. I don't know why people are acting so surprised when this is Microsoft being Microsoft.
MS is a three trillion dollar company, if it enters a market it has no need to compete, they take what they want and with the financial influence it can bypass laws that are meant to protect the consumer and the workforce. Just look at how they are cornering the AI market right now with buyups and investments.
Capcom Co., Ltd. today announced that in its consolidated earnings for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, net sales were 152,410 million yen (up 21.0% year-over-year), operating income was 57,081 million yen (up 12.3% year-over-year), ordinary income was 59,422 million yen (up 15.7 % year-over-year), and net income attributable to owners of the parent was 43,374 million yen (up 18.1 % year-over-year).
Game developers have already started to confirm that they will support the Nintendo Switch 2 with their future titles.
Didn’t take long.
While I don't like people losing jobs, I do like seeing that the Embracer model isn't working. I could do without the market consolidation. Hope the staff get sucked into some companies actually trying to make good games
Good good. Sony will buy up the talent.
And they will go to Sony, because I bet they'd like the prospect of working on a highly rated game instead of average scoring ones
For as big as Embracer Group the company doesn’t seem to generate a lot of revenue. Embracer purchased so many smaller companies, while not releasing particularly high selling games. Seems the company is relying on investments to keep itself a float and together.
Bit off more than they could chew. Probably couldn't secure more Saudi money.