To say that today’s gaming news has had a cascading effect all over the industry would be an understatement. We’re obviously talking about the situation with Microsoft and how they shut down both Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks after some “restructuring” that was decided for within Bethesda, whom those two studios were acquired. The fact that Xbox did this during a period of “great expansion” for them is rather poignant, as they’ve been bragging for many months now about “what these buys will do for Xbox,” and then this happened. Many, including Moon Studios, are not amused by this in the slightest.
The outrage over what Microsoft did today spread not only to within their own team, including one of the heads of Arkane itself but to Moon Studios CEO Tom Mahler. He quoted the situation on Twitter and made a rather revelatory statement about his company:
That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? He saw what Electronic Arts did to companies in the 90s, and he’s seen what Microsoft, Sony, and places like The Embracer Group have done in the 2010s and 2020s, and he’s not down with it.
In the comments, a person noted that even if the company did get acquired and DID survive the “inevitably layoffs and restructuring,” they’d likely be asked to do live-service games for the company they were owned by. Mahler’s reply? “No thanks!”
Mahler isn’t the only one who has been going after the industry in recent months. During the DICE Awards, Larian Studios head Swen Vincke called out the “greedy” game industry for buying up developers only to dump them after things didn’t “go as planned.” Larian is also an independent studio not tied to any of the big three, and if you recall, they made the 2023 Game of the Year. Just saying.
The biggest problem here is that the industry has been on such an uptick since the new millennia that companies like Microsoft, Sony and The Embracer Group felt that the “profit margins” couldn’t go anywhere but up. However, they forgot that those profits are tied to meaningful gaming experiences and not ones that are “infinitely big and yet have no content,” or are so rushed out to release that the launches turn off gamers immediately.
It’s good to know that some companies are standing up for themselves and trying hard not to be swooped up in the “buying spree,” and hopefully, the layoffs will end soon.
