Microsoft and Riot's Latest Moves Highlight a Disturbing Trend With Dangerous Consequences

Blizzard's unnamed survival MMO was canceled with layoffs at Microsoft, leaving AAA gaming with fewer opportunities for developers to shine.

[RhinoGamer88]

Yet, the Executives who made these poor decisions still have super high paying jobs, bonuses, benefits, and stock options. #failtown

[Demetrius]

Exactly mfs selfish just like how the politicians work lol

[The3faces]

Blizzards MMO was in development hell for over5 years, so rather than release a broken game MS decided to cancel it. When Redfall released the Sony crowd were screaming Sony would never release a game this broken. Well maybe MS didn't want another Redfall on their hands.

[jeromeface]

That mmo, project titan became overwatch... look how successful that's turned out /s

[--Onilink--]

This isnt the MMO, it was a survival game. And I wouldn’t really call it development hell either, plenty of sites are saying it was in development for 6 years, but just from the few things known about it, it never really seemed to actually have gotten to a full production level, so most of those “6 years” were probably just a lot of planning and pre-prod by a very small team, followed by a small push in the last year or 2 to try to get the greenlight for full prod (which in itself isn’t really that weird to see for game development across the industry)

[MrBaskerville]

They could have cancelled it and assembled new teams with new games instead of firing everyone. They have the money to do that.

[MrDead]

MS had the money to make games too but they decided on spending £80 billion to lock publishers away. From these publisher acquisitions we have no new games that weren't already coming, a big middle finger to gamers and the workers being fired.

[__SteakDeck__]

@The3faces Cope and damage control. Lol

[MrDead]

Wow I'm surprised this article got through as a certain mod has been taken down related news.

Isn't it good to know that while huge chunks of the workforce is being destroyed because of MS's industry consolidation, games being cancelled and Publishers being removed from competing systems so that MS, CEO's, shareholders and Bobby Kotick get nice fat pay-outs.

MS's has given a big middle finger to gamers and now to its own workers, thanks MS

"Senator Warren took to Twitter to criticize the downsizing, reminding followers of her previous warnings against the merger. “I warned that this deal would hurt workers,” she wrote. “These layoffs are a stark reminder that corporate mergers are bad for workers. The FTC should keep up the fight to unwind this merger.”

Activision Blizzard employees have described the layoffs as a “bloodbath” on social media. Reports have emerged that Call of Duty developer Sledgehammer Games has lost more than a quarter of its employees. CharlieINTEL puts the percentage of Sledgehammer layoffs at 25% whereas Tom Henderson of Insider Gaming has heard it’s somewhat close to 30%."

[Chocoburger]

What a disgrace Microsoft is to this industry. They're only in it for money and living room control, not giving a single shit about anyone or anything else that they mow down. Any Activison employee that may have been cheering for the merger deserves what's eventually coming to them.

[darthv72]

Newsflash... they are ALL in it for the money. These corporations are NOT your friend.

[MrDead]

@Darth

Yes they are all in it for the money but MS is an outlier. Competing platforms to Xbox have add to the industry, MS just takes from it. All MS acquisitions have done is limit gamers access to multiplatform publishers and got workers fired. No new games are coming to Xbox from MS's industry consolidation but we know because of it games are being cancelled.

Corporations are not our friends but lets support the ones that make the industry better, not worse like Microsoft.

[StormSnooper]

MS pushing gaming into all sorts of bad directions...

I remember how with the first xbox they were so much more responsible. But it was too good to be true. This is where they wanted to go all along. Terrible Terrible company.

[YourMommySpoils]

Microsoft never do AAA gaming in the first place.

[anast]

They just want to use AI to make a shell that looks like a game and a slot machine inside. They don't need a ton of workers to do this.

[__SteakDeck__]

Never forget that Ryan McCaffrey from IGN, bragged about this being a Xbox and PC exclusive. Now it’s not releasing. https://x.com/DMC_Ryan/stat...

[victorMaje]

They can plan on allocating Billions for acquisitions, but when it comes to planning on allocating funds to keep the workforce, you know, the ones that can make the games you sell & make them good, no now that’s too much. Easier to just get to chopping…what a disgrace.