[eightysixfour]

There's no real evidence in here that the IDTech team or the "coders" were specifically let go. I'm not saying it didn't happen but the article is just raging at the idea of it happening without presenting any evidence of it.

I can't help but think the industry will be better off in a few years after this Xbox "restructure." That's a lot of knowledge and talent that's no longer stuck in 14 layers of middle management hell.

[georgeecollins]

Not the OP, but Scott Miller said "most if not all" coders at ID were laid off. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-layoffs-july-2026

I hope the industry will be in a better place in a few years. There is this recurring theme of big companies rolling up little developers and destroying their development culture.

[thewebguyd]

The industry could have been in a better place already if the DOJ hadn't allowed Microsoft to buy up all these studios.

I have near zero hope we'll see any meaningful antitrust action in the future either without a complete overhaul of the incentives in politics.

Xbox div's annual revenue is $23 billion. Its big enough to be its own company and sit upper-mid pack of the F500 on its own. It'd be the number 3 or 4th top gaming company globally, beating out Nintendo even. No reason for Microsoft to not have been broken up by now, let alone have been allowed to buy all the studios they did. Don't forget they also mislead the FTC to convince them to allow the Activision/Blizzard acquisition to go forward, and then once allowed laid off 1900 employees, mostly admin/HR & support, forcing it to integrate into Microsoft gaming and operate less independently.

[epolanski]

When UK blocked the merger this very board flamed anti business old Europe.

[superxpro12]

One does wonder how many bots were involved in the flaming

[teamonkey]

I’d love to blame collective internet myopia on bots, just as I’d love to blame leaded gas for the mental state of geriatric politicians, but in my heart I don’t buy it.

[rightbyte]

I like the concept "Goomba fallacy", but it is a bit confusing since Goombas are exactly the same, where as board users are at least me and not me.

Edit: Keeping to SMB1 for simplicity.

[toast0]

> The industry could have been in a better place already if the DOJ hadn't allowed Microsoft to buy up all these studios.

Yes, but it's not the DOJ's job to tell Microsoft when they're lighting their money on fire. There's no unfair competition from this kind of thing. It wasn't any different when leather companies or old media would buy up studios and run themselves out of business.

Microsoft buying out studios could be anti-competitive, but Microsoft would have to not be Microsoft.

[thewebguyd]

The acquisitions don't have to be successful to run afoul of antitrust laws or to be anticompetitive. Slash and burn often does violate the law.

Firing thousands of people and closing studios reduces the overall capacity of the industry to produce diverse, competing games. Just because Microsoft is Microsoft and is incompetent doesn't mean the rest of the industry and consumers don't lose out on what those independent studios could have created on their own.

In terms of antitrust/whether the FTC should have allowed the mergers is purely predictive. Microsoft looking like idiots from it has no bearing on whether the behavior of buying them up itself is anticompetitive.

[toast0]

I could see it being anticompetitive if it benefited Microsoft products.

Ex: if Microsoft buys out office competitors or webmail competitors to shut them down, because those customers are going to be likely to buy more Microsoft stuff.

Buying games studios could be anticompetitive if Microsoft were going to keep them alive and make their output platform exclusive (but iirc they made a commitment not to do that). It could be anticompetitive if they were going to kill them and funnel consumers into their games with continuing development... It could also be anticompetitive if Microsoft were going to give these studios some uberengine secret access to Xbox/Windows that allowed them to make the best games that outside studios couldn't come close to...

But what's happened is Microsoft is killing the studios; all at once is a surprise, but death within like 3-7 years could be predicted. Most of those people will pop up again at other studios or start new studios. Some of them will realized gamedev sucks and do something else. This is the lifecycle of studios purchased by corporate overlords. When key people make enough from the purchase to allow significant but not complete creative freedom, they often make some really good games at their next venture. Too little freedom -> pump out sequels or gacha games; too much freedom -> interesting games that don't end up being much fun.

[eightysixfour]

Yes, it was mentioned in the article. I just don't count a tweet from an "insider" as particularly strong evidence anymore.

[CuriouslyC]

Miller has a history with id, and has probably gotten numerous reports directly from boots on the ground in the company.

[starkparker]

Sounds like Digital Foundry's also looking into it, without much detail or confirmation: https://bsky.app/profile/dark1x.bsky.social/post/3mpyvnrbwds...

[bix6]

> There is this recurring theme of big companies rolling up little developers and destroying their development culture

Why are the little devs selling to the big companies in the first place then? If you’re crushing it as an Indie studio why wouldn’t you stay that way knowing how big tech acts?

[mayoff]

Here’s what Tim Schafer said about selling Double Fine to Microsoft at the time:

> "I think it's perfect for us, because we can just focus on doing our inspired weird games, and not worry about how we're going to get our next deal. We aren't chasing down our next funding and thinking about how many more months of funding we have all the time."

https://gameinformer.com/2019/06/23/tim-schafer-on-microsoft...

[account42]

That's founder speech for "I'm getting a big paycheck out of this deal lol".

[all2]

Money. Someone made a lot of money selling IP and the skills of the team.

[munificent]

Because big companies can spend way more on marketing than you.

If a big company decides to make a game very similar to yours, they can make theirs win by throwing more money into marketing than you can. Do you want them to spend that marketing budget on your competition or on you?

[SepiaSapient]

"Little devs" in this context is still a company that probably has investors, investors that can push for the acquisition. Even if a small dev studio is self funded or has normal debt that they can realistically pay off, the money on the table for the owner is hard to resist. If the owner has qualms, the whole pitch of "we'll give you artistic independence and the funds to make what you want" will seal the deal.

The only people that can tell Microsoft to gargle their gonads are already rich as fuck or have a will of steel and principles uncommon with entrepreneurs.

[pjc50]

The directors like money. And are probably beholden to their investors.

[starkparker]

We might not hear much on that until tomorrow, since most iDTech development was out of the Frankfurt studio. If they're shutting down Frankfurt, it'd be worth getting antennae out.

Looking at LinkedIn, I see mostly people from tech (design tooling, game AI, QA), art (modeling, mats, UI, character), design (levels, gameplay), and production roles in DFW being cut, but haven't seen engine roles or Frankfurt-based employees.

ZeniMax's QA team was notably unionized in 2023: https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/quality-assurance-worker...

[kibwen]

What we know so far is just that id is "cutting a "significant number of staff":

https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mpy...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/1up5pta/95_reportedly...

And I'm not sure I share your optimism that the industry will be better. It might not be worse, because it's possible that Microsoft is just so dysfunctional that id would never be allowed to produce another good game anyway. But the people losing their jobs here might be financially better off just leaving the game industry entirely. In particular, if the engine devs were totally cut, it's not clear to me that there's room for a studio to differentiate itself with a custom engine in the modern day.

[pizza234]

> There's no real evidence in here that the IDTech team or the "coders" were specifically let go

Scott Miller said it himself:

> Big day today at Id Software [...] today, Microsoft/XBOX decided half the team was deemed USELESS and needed to be let go [...] With literally the best of the best coders in the industry.

[eightysixfour]

I like Scott Miller but he doesn't work there and "insider" information after layoffs is almost always part of a PR game by one side or the other. Again, not saying he is wrong, just that a tweet from someone secondhand really doesn't do it for me as evidence anymore.

[Toluhis]

Thanks for reminding me to be more critical in my reception of news.

[Hikikomori]

What's the tweet it references then?