Xbox Game Studios Stupidity Hate Thread Game Pass Edition

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Jace on ice dijo:
Some new Obsidian details.

Grounded 3 canceled
Avowed 2 canceled
Outer Worlds 2 DLCs are still being worked on.

The unnamed Shadowrun game is being "re pitched" whatever that means.
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Chris must be seething considering he originally said that Avowed 2 was still a thing yesterday. Imagine getting your ass proven wrong in a single day.
 
Inside a studio layoff — Big questions for Microsoft’s intentions for id Software

There's some interesting information in this article about what were going to be id's potential new projects.

id Software was vulnerable in part because it was between major games. Just yesterday, it had shipped Revelations, a downloadable content (DLC), or expansion pack, for Doom: The Dark Ages. The cuts came as id’s team was toying with different game ideas including a John Wick-style original game called Fury; a new game in the Perfect Dark franchise; and a multiplayer/co-op version of Doom. It’s not clear which game, if any, the remaining team can do.
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As for the code-named Fury, it was a project that game director and studio co-director Hugo Martin proposed in the past as an original intellectual property. It had elements of sci-fi, noir, and Louisiana and Chicago gangsters. It had a modern, cyberpunk-like feel. It had a concept called Gun Fu, which combined gunplay with martial arts. The game was supposed to feel a lot like a John Wick movie, but it was not formally greenlit for production.

It was a chance to go beyond Doom, but moving away from core franchises is not exactly what Microsoft wants to do now.

The team was also considering doing a game based on Perfect Dark, the franchise that hasn’t had a new addition since Perfect Dark Zero in 2005 on the Xbox 360 game console. The studio got wind of the idea one day when someone made a presentation in a glass office.

The Initiative, an Xbox studio in Santa Monica, struggled for as much as seven years to make a Perfect Dark game before The Initiative was shut down in July 2025. Evidently, the Perfect Dark game was available since id Software could tap the IP of other Microsoft properties if they weren’t being worked on by others. Concept art was in the works.

Still another candidate was a Western-style robot game, with a focus on survival. Dubbed Ironwood, it was akin to the world of Westworld.

And as far as Doom goes, there were proposals to do multiplayer, co-op and more DLC. One of the ideas was to bring back old guns from previous games like Doom Eternal and Doom 2016. Fortunately, there were a lot of veterans to do such work, as id Software largely escaped previous Microsoft layoffs. But perhaps not anymore.
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Now as I said these are potential projects - it's been over a year since and Doom TDA release, and they hadn't locked in their next major project. WTF? This sounds like an insanely inefficient way to run a AAA studio. So developers are effectively utilised it should be the next project is locked in and decided upon before the previous one is complete. It's not surprising there were massive layoffs if they were just going to have devs sitting around twiddling their thumbs while the higher ups were figuring out what's next. But Marty Stratton and Hugo Martin should be joining them since they are clueless on how to run a studio.
 
Someone in my extended circle was affected by the layoffs. Apparently Microsoft just locked him out of all his accounts on Monday and still haven’t sent an email or actually contacted him. I’m not sure if thats legal, even if it is in a state with what I understand to be lax labour laws
 
guiltyspark85 dijo:
Now as I said these are potential projects - it's been over a year since and Doom TDA release, and they hadn't locked in their next major project. WTF? This sounds like an insanely inefficient way to run a AAA studio. So developers are effectively utilised it should be the next project is locked in and decided upon before the previous one is complete. It's not surprising there were massive layoffs if they were just going to have devs sitting around twiddling their thumbs while the higher ups were figuring out what's next. But Marty Stratton and Hugo Martin should be joining them since they are clueless on how to run a studio.
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This has been a problem with the bloated dev teams and cycles for years.

Previously you'd have a game in late development, move early stage members to start production on the next game, then once the first game is out the door shift teams to work on the 2nd game, and just repeat that. By doing so you retain staff, keep up product flow, and don't have a brain drain of competent people leaving or getting swept up in mass layoffs, which is what the industry has spent the past decade plus doing.

To have not even had their next project locked in a year after their previous project went out the door is fucking insanity, because that should have happened prior to doom the dark ages being released, even if the insane dev times meant you'd still lay off half the studio because they'd have nothing to do for another 2 years.

The fucking stupidity is mindboggling.
 
𝓗𝓾𝓰𝓱 𝓦𝓸𝓽𝓶𝓪𝓮𝓽 dijo:
Someone in my extended circle was affected by the layoffs. Apparently Microsoft just locked him out of all his accounts on Monday and still haven’t sent an email or actually contacted him. I’m not sure if thats legal, even if it is in a state with what I understand to be lax labour laws
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Tell him to lawyer up now just in case. Federal labor law (assuming he's American) generally requires prompt notification of termination, by direct contact or courier/certified letter as quickly as practicable. Going radio silent after revoking credentials is likely illegal. Hell, in most states they have to pay you your final paycheck (in person by cash or check or by direct deposit) within 24 hours of the effective moment of termination, with pretty vicious penalties for failing that. Even fucking fast food joints have to play by those rules.

That can be waived by the termed employee (at the employee's sole discretion) and often a proposed "settlement" for termination is "if you let us pay your last paycheck through regular payroll timing, we'll throw in an extra two weeks as severance" unless there's a separate severance offered. But radio silence? Not kosher. They're playing with fire, presumably thinking they're bigger and badder than the Trump administration's department of labor. Might not be a gamble they should be taking.

ETA: That's not even getting into the WARN act (they have to give substantial notice of layoffs, including to proposed affected employees, when reducing their workforce by more than a certain percentage), which a surprising number of companies fuck up when they do layoffs of all sizes.
 
Jace on ice dijo:
Avowed 2 canceled

The unnamed Shadowrun game is being "re pitched" whatever that means.
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Re-pitched means they have to basically convince Microsoft that it's more profitable to complete development and release the game than it is to just cancel it. Avowed 2 is apparently also meant to be re-pitched because of how far along into development it's meant to be. Supposedly it's still being actively worked on despite being canceled or put on hold, depending on who's saying what.

Ngl, the potential shadowrun cancelation was the one thing I was really disappointed to hear about. Tim Cain announced last year that he was coming out of retirement to work on something full time at Obsidian, I suspect it was Shadowrun.

Also worth mentioning that Josh Sawyer was working on a new RPG that was originally intended to be a Fallout title before Bethesda refused to let them use the IP. So they made a bunch of alterations to keep it spiritually similar to but legally distinct from Fallout. Basically meaning that development on Obsidian's Fallout title could be much further along than what people would expect.
 
moocow dijo:
Is there any known explanation for that refusal, besides Bethesda just deciding to be cunts in general?
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It's them being possessive cunts.

There's a rumor that as part of the acquisition by Microsoft, Bethesda retained control of their IPs insofar as deciding how and what they're used for. It's partially why thr new Fallout project is a "co-production" with Bethesda "consulting" while Obsidian takes lead.

There's a story about how after NV released, Bethesda executives marched the development team into a meeting and forced them to watch a power point presentation about how they (Obsidian) don't understand the Fallout IP. That ended any working relationship they had at the time, even though the plan was for Obsidian to basically act as a support studio for Bethesda, developing b-tier titles for TES and Fallout in between the mainline entries. The relationship between the two studios is acrimonious at best, which makes it super funny to me that Microsoft basically took away Bethsoft's toy and gave it to Obsidian.
 
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