Microsoft is laying off a further 650 staff from its Xbox gaming business, according to a memo sent by chief Phil Spencer to staff today, September 12, and obtained by IGN.
Isn’t he always like this?
Don’t really understand why he’s always protected by the community. He’s the head of xbox studio before xbox one released. Which is around the time xbox started to to have problems with their first party output
He’s well liked because he came from the trenches and has a good track record of knowing his shit. When compared with the likes of Kotick or Guillemot, it’s a breath of fresh air (despite being such a low bar). However as one of the highest execs in the entire gaming industry, this is the kind of stuff he does all year long.
Plus you know, his public-facing image is well curated and people like it.
And people thought 14 years of copyright was too short… you play capitalist games of granting virtually infinite monopolies (trademarks are incredibly effective at restricting the public domain), as property to sell and trade to the highest bidders, the public domain be damned, and you get capitalist prizes like massive layoffs and unemployment and a deteriorating, corporation-owned culture
This is why they’re one of the wealthiest companies on the planet. They’re very good at “business”, which is just a way of saying they’re good at maximising profits.
Man if big studios are constantly layng ppl off, that means in a few years we will probably have an influx of even more small game studios and it’s gonna be way harder for big companies to acquire them.
Though I don’t like the layoffs, I like the world in which game developers are back to steering their own company again.
While I hate the idea of people losing their jobs, stepping back for a moment and looking at what they are claiming, its not terribly surprising:
Spencer said the roles affect mostly corporate and support functions
When companies merge, this is kinda needed. You don’t need two fully functional HR departments. While the HR staff from the buying company will likely need to expand, it won’t be by the same amount as the HR department of the company being bought. As network functions are merged, you probably don’t need all of the IT staff which came with the merger. A lot of management functions likely end up merged, meaning redundancies. And this sort of thing is going to move through a lot of the non-project work functions of the company.
Yes it sucks. But, it’s to be expected in a merger. Now, whether or not we want this level of consolidation, that’s a different ball of wax entirely. The last thing we need is more studios falling under the sway of these massive companies. That’s the thing which should be drawing our ire.
Absolutely disgusting. Im so happy i traded away my xbox and am done with the company.
Anti Competition commisioner or government agency should directly fine the corporation for breach of compeition law agreed on during purchase of these IPs.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
No humor/memes etc…
No affiliate links
No advertising.
No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
No self promotion.
No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
No politics.
Comments.
No personal attacks.
Obey instance rules.
No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc…)
Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Meanwhile they reveal 1 Billion revenue from their latest acquisition…
I said something similar in another thread, but Phil is looking (and acting) more and more like an alien cockroach is inhabiting his skin lately.
Isn’t he always like this? Don’t really understand why he’s always protected by the community. He’s the head of xbox studio before xbox one released. Which is around the time xbox started to to have problems with their first party output
He’s well liked because he came from the trenches and has a good track record of knowing his shit. When compared with the likes of Kotick or Guillemot, it’s a breath of fresh air (despite being such a low bar). However as one of the highest execs in the entire gaming industry, this is the kind of stuff he does all year long.
Plus you know, his public-facing image is well curated and people like it.
Is Phil asking for more sugar in his water?
He looked much better after putting on a few pounds and beating the shit out of a blind lawyer
One of, if not the wealthiest company on the planet, acting like they can’t afford it. These people need to come back down to reality.
They wanted the IP not the staff.
And people thought 14 years of copyright was too short… you play capitalist games of granting virtually infinite monopolies (trademarks are incredibly effective at restricting the public domain), as property to sell and trade to the highest bidders, the public domain be damned, and you get capitalist prizes like massive layoffs and unemployment and a deteriorating, corporation-owned culture
This is why they’re one of the wealthiest companies on the planet. They’re very good at “business”, which is just a way of saying they’re good at maximising profits.
Man if big studios are constantly layng ppl off, that means in a few years we will probably have an influx of even more small game studios and it’s gonna be way harder for big companies to acquire them.
Though I don’t like the layoffs, I like the world in which game developers are back to steering their own company again.
They do layoffs and rehire later though
Get rid of that fucker first
but he still needs to collect his Q3 bonus cheque 🥺
But, but, he’s a gamer bro :(
While I hate the idea of people losing their jobs, stepping back for a moment and looking at what they are claiming, its not terribly surprising:
When companies merge, this is kinda needed. You don’t need two fully functional HR departments. While the HR staff from the buying company will likely need to expand, it won’t be by the same amount as the HR department of the company being bought. As network functions are merged, you probably don’t need all of the IT staff which came with the merger. A lot of management functions likely end up merged, meaning redundancies. And this sort of thing is going to move through a lot of the non-project work functions of the company.
Yes it sucks. But, it’s to be expected in a merger. Now, whether or not we want this level of consolidation, that’s a different ball of wax entirely. The last thing we need is more studios falling under the sway of these massive companies. That’s the thing which should be drawing our ire.
Absolutely disgusting. Im so happy i traded away my xbox and am done with the company.
Anti Competition commisioner or government agency should directly fine the corporation for breach of compeition law agreed on during purchase of these IPs.
Buying an Xbox rather than a PS4 in the last generation was the biggest disappointment in my 40 year gaming history. I won’t be doing it again.