The video game industry has reacted with shock and anger after Xbox shut down several game studios today, May 7, 2024 including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, the developers of Redfall and Hi-Fi Rush respectively.
The stupid thing is it totally could have made things better. Facilitated knowledge share, floated work between studios if one needed help, heck, just combining HR and publishing tools could have freed up some costs that could feed back into development. Something.
None of these companies create jobs, none of them create competition, none of them foster creativity, none of them innovate. Global monopolies are a blight.
And I’m not going to let doom scrolling and apathy deter me from trying to change things. At least I emailed my congressman today
Hifi Rush is in Humble Choice this month, and I noticed they have a redemption deadline which is a bit out of the ordinary. So it’s possible it’ll get delisted, or maybe Humble is just playing it safe with the keys they have.
It could get delisted in the future if there were any licensing deals, although that can happen for any game. If you already own it on Steam you’ll be able to keep downloading and playing it indefinitely.
Buying something and shutting it down shouldn’t be possible. You don’t want to own it anymore? Great, they’re independent, good luck have fun. But you didn’t do anything, to say it stopped existing. It is a purely theoretical act. No factory was torn down, no warehouse was liquidated. A video game studio is just a bunch of folks who come in to work on the same thing every weekday. Games are made of labor. If the money stops flowing, that’s a problem, but it shouldn’t be a light-switch existential termination.
If the studios had the resources they could easily become independent. But the corporate side owns the rights to their works, so the now independent studio doesn’t have any incoming revenue.
The average employee won’t work for scraps or nothing. So it’s effectively over if big corpo cuts them off.
That is not what happened here. I am saying: buying a studio and saying whoops you don’t exist anymore should not happen. You are saying: but it does. Because copyright? Even for shit that’s not out yet. A bunch of these closures involve killing unreleased projects, which are obviously never going to go anywhere in the hands of whichever robots own them. Tell me their ownership matters and you will see what backlash looks like.
Thanks for explaining. I was not arguing the point that closures happen, just expanding on why it’s not easy for the studios to get back on their feet again as independents.
There will likely be non-disclosure agreements, non-competes or simply IP rights to take into consideration if we want to argue why these studios can’t continue their work. In the end it comes down to legal stuff and money. The IP rights even for unreleased products very likely are with the parent corporation. The same goes for the codebase.
So yeah. The studios are left with nothing, except a severance pay if they’re lucky.
bAsIc eCoNoMiCs is even less meaningful than just scoffing about naivete. Which you misspelled.
I’m making a normative statement about how this studio - which successfully made a beloved and profitable game, as a product that over a million people paid for - was still treated like it failed, lost money, and ruined everything. And that statement is, if success isn’t good enough, that’s fucking bullshit.
And the thorn that puts in your side is… that it’s not capitalist enough? My guy, do you think the children’s introductory textbook version of supply and demand has a footnote about destroying successful companies for shits and giggles? Or maybe you only spit that libertarian shibboleth at anything besides line-go-up. In just two words, you’ve assured that I don’t know and I don’t care.
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What happens to the talent at these studios?
Are all these buyouts just a way to force hire workers.
Hi-Fi Rush is a blast and I highly recommend it.
Hopefully this doesnt steamroll into a Embracer situation.
Still, pretty obnoxious of Microsoft to buy these studios, just to close them.
Every capitalist wank last year talking about how all the mergers were wonderful.
The stupid thing is it totally could have made things better. Facilitated knowledge share, floated work between studios if one needed help, heck, just combining HR and publishing tools could have freed up some costs that could feed back into development. Something.
But yeah, saw it coming
None of these companies create jobs, none of them create competition, none of them foster creativity, none of them innovate. Global monopolies are a blight.
And I’m not going to let doom scrolling and apathy deter me from trying to change things. At least I emailed my congressman today
This is awful. What happens to the games themselves? I haven’t played hifi rush yet but it’s been on my list.
Hifi Rush is in Humble Choice this month, and I noticed they have a redemption deadline which is a bit out of the ordinary. So it’s possible it’ll get delisted, or maybe Humble is just playing it safe with the keys they have.
Oh I’ll check it out on there then thanks for the headsup
It could get delisted in the future if there were any licensing deals, although that can happen for any game. If you already own it on Steam you’ll be able to keep downloading and playing it indefinitely.
Nothing.
I don’t know but it still hasn’t been cracked… I imagine things would be very bad if they decide to pull it for some reason…
There should be no shock from this. This happens everytime.
Buying something and shutting it down shouldn’t be possible. You don’t want to own it anymore? Great, they’re independent, good luck have fun. But you didn’t do anything, to say it stopped existing. It is a purely theoretical act. No factory was torn down, no warehouse was liquidated. A video game studio is just a bunch of folks who come in to work on the same thing every weekday. Games are made of labor. If the money stops flowing, that’s a problem, but it shouldn’t be a light-switch existential termination.
If the studios had the resources they could easily become independent. But the corporate side owns the rights to their works, so the now independent studio doesn’t have any incoming revenue.
The average employee won’t work for scraps or nothing. So it’s effectively over if big corpo cuts them off.
‘They could but they can’t’ is certainly almost a take.
Misrepresenting what I’m saying is not nice of you.
Missing the point of is versus ought is just bewildering.
Why even engage if you’re not interested in discussion?
That is not what happened here. I am saying: buying a studio and saying whoops you don’t exist anymore should not happen. You are saying: but it does. Because copyright? Even for shit that’s not out yet. A bunch of these closures involve killing unreleased projects, which are obviously never going to go anywhere in the hands of whichever robots own them. Tell me their ownership matters and you will see what backlash looks like.
Thanks for explaining. I was not arguing the point that closures happen, just expanding on why it’s not easy for the studios to get back on their feet again as independents.
There will likely be non-disclosure agreements, non-competes or simply IP rights to take into consideration if we want to argue why these studios can’t continue their work. In the end it comes down to legal stuff and money. The IP rights even for unreleased products very likely are with the parent corporation. The same goes for the codebase.
So yeah. The studios are left with nothing, except a severance pay if they’re lucky.
That’s an amazing amount of naivety on display.
This sort of empty shit comment is worse than telling anyone to go fuck themselves.
In that case go fuck yourself and learn some basic economics before you open your hole again.
bAsIc eCoNoMiCs is even less meaningful than just scoffing about naivete. Which you misspelled.
I’m making a normative statement about how this studio - which successfully made a beloved and profitable game, as a product that over a million people paid for - was still treated like it failed, lost money, and ruined everything. And that statement is, if success isn’t good enough, that’s fucking bullshit.
And the thorn that puts in your side is… that it’s not capitalist enough? My guy, do you think the children’s introductory textbook version of supply and demand has a footnote about destroying successful companies for shits and giggles? Or maybe you only spit that libertarian shibboleth at anything besides line-go-up. In just two words, you’ve assured that I don’t know and I don’t care.
If a misspelled word is your opening argument the rest of your pointless essay isn’t worth reading. Go back to school.
It wasn’t, but cling to whatever shields your ego.
And consider your own advice - “basic” doesn’t mean “fundamental.” It means “for children.” Try advanced economics.