Jason Schreier has shared insight on the closures of Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, in new reporting for Bloomberg, but also on Twitter, in response to said reporting.
It’s actually helpful to check back at the tweet first. Schreier corrected someone who misinterpreted his article, stating:
“What actually happened is that ZeniMax had to consolidate and chose to shutter studios that were pitching rather than studios with active projects.“
And Jason rephrased it again, so we’ll let him explain it in a different way:
“There’s a humongous difference between “we are cutting two studios because they are pitching” and “we have to cut two studios so we picked the ones that are pitching”
And if you take the time to think about it, this really was a rough place for Zenimax to be placed in. Their upcoming projects include a new Fallout game, which we know that Bethesda will fast track by working with an external developer. It also includes Elder Scrolls 6 and the Indiana Jones game.
While it would have been great to get games like Hi-Fi Rush 2 and Dishonored 3, from Zenimax’s perspective, these games were unlikely to make as much money as the ones we mentioned above. In this current environment, there may also be a reasonable fear that they won’t even break even.
Discussing this is not to justify that potentially a hundred employees at Zenimax have lost their jobs, but Schreier’s clarifications help paint a more accurate picture on the situation.
As for the Bloomberg article itself, Schreier revealed that there’s even more plans to cut down staff at Zenimax. Xbox has been offering voluntary severance agreements to producers, QA testers, and other staff.
Schreier got quotes from Microsoft Gaming leadership who explained the situation to Zenimax Studios in a townhall meeting. President of Studios and Content Matt Booty said that the studios were spread too thin, like “peanut butter on bread,” and most studios were understaffed.
Meanwhile, Zenimax Online Studios head Jill Braff said this:
“It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do.”
Matt also made it clear that Arkane Austin’s closure had nothing to do with the reception to their latest release, Redfall.
So as it turns out, Zenimax has been in internal turmoil for some time now, and this reorganization was long overdue. As Schreier explains, this may have been Zenimax’s issues on their own. That means it may not be related to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, nor does it necessarily mean that Microsoft could not support these studios.
It certainly still feels unfair, as we know that Toys for Bob very recently convinced Activision and Microsoft to cut them loose completely. Perhaps there were things different in these situations that we just don’t know yet. But fans will certainly keep looking for answers, and raising more questions, on why Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks could not be saved.
