• Aielman15@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    News of Everwild’s cancellation arrives amid more layoffs at Microsoft; the company is reportedly slashing nearly 9,000 jobs as part of new cuts at Microsoft.

    Wow. It was rumored to be a big layoff, but 9,000 is way over any forecast. And this is what? The third so far since Covid? Is there anyone left working for them, at this point? Or is it all seasonal contractors?

    EDIT: turns out that they gutted The Initiative (the supposedly AAAA studio that never released anything), cancelled Everwild, cut 50% of Turn10, 10% of King, and cancelled an unknown number of unannounced games, including one MMO title developed by the TES Online devs.
    What a bloodbath. But hey, at least Phil is safe.

    • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Contractors never count in layoff numbers, so this number would be much, much worse if you included them. The actual job losses could easily be more than doubled.

      • Aielman15@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Considering that it skipped the last showcase despite reportedly releasing next year, I don’t have high hopes for that one.

        Wouldn’t be surprised if it was built on the backs of seasonal contractors. Seems like that’s the strategy they have chosen for their other big IPs as well (Forza Motorsport 8 and Halo Infinite).

        It’s incredible that the clowns in charge of the gaming division and responsible for dragging it through the mud for all these years get to keep their job and will probably see an increase in their salaries as well, while the people that lost their jobs because of their incompetence will get nothing but a sad press release from Uncle Phil the HR department.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 days ago

      But seriously this is tragic as hell for all the people losing their jobs and seeing all the work they did on the game go up in a puff of smoke.

    • Ashtear@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      I don’t think we get granular info on this stuff, all we know is this latest round of cuts involves sales too as they are moving to outsource some of that work. And that Microsoft’s total head count has been mostly level since they added a ton of people with acquisitions and hires in 2022.

      Clearly, Xbox has seen a lot of cuts though.