Some sad and somewhat shocking news as Microsoft has laid off a veteran staff.
Jessie Thomas, who has worked at Microsoft for nine years, revealed she just learned that she was laid off herself. In her tweet she says this:
“Sad to announce that my role with Microsoft has been eliminated.
To all those who have been a part of Team Xbox. Thank you. Hope I made you proud. <3”
Our review of her LinkedIn account reveals that her most recent role was Senior Business PM of Culture Programs. We’re not clear if she was a part of Team Xbox itself at this time, but in the seven years before this, she was bringing her specializations in neuroscience and UX research to do user research for Xbox.
So, she was involved in user research for Killer Instinct Season 3, State of Decay 2, Halo Wars 2, and the Microsoft Solitaire Collection. After that, she founded the MCC Insider Program and Halo Insider Program, involving the Halo community more closely in collecting feedback. She also did work for Xbox’s branding and graphic design on their user interface.
Quoting her tweet, Tom shared this rumor:
“more Xbox layoffs happening this week. Microsoft laid off Jessie while she was on vacation.”
For now, we only have Tom to corroborate this rumor, but we won’t have to wait too long to find out if it’s true or not. It’s of course unhappy news to share, but as of the moment, there isn’t a lot to gleam from the limited information we have for now.
We will note that Jessie was not a game developer herself, although she was working for Xbox. While we can’t discount the possibility of more layoffs in game studios and game studio closures, they seemed to have already done a lot of house cleaning to find cause to keep going. The studios we know that are working under Microsoft would seem to be mostly accounted for with announced titles on the way, or ongoing games that are currently getting support.
While Microsoft Gaming’s leadership has gone on public to talk about layoffs and studio closures, we don’t really have a full picture of what’s going on with the company. But it’s certainly true that Sony, Embracer, Take-Two Interactive, and many others are going through similar struggles, with no easy answers for it.
As always, we wish the best for any employees about to be laid off by Microsoft. We hope they find placement in the industry they prefer soon, whether that’s in gaming or another field in technology, or perhaps other specializations that they may have.
