Bethesda employees came out to protest against Microsoft

endorphinsplox

I've been feeling for a while, and even commented on it a few times, both here and in my videos that something weird is happening behind the scenes at ZOS. Quality has been in decline over the past couple of years, and is now in a nosedive for ESO as far as I'm concerned but initially I thought maybe they moved a lot of their workforce over to the other yet-to-be-revealed MMO project that ZOS is supposedly working on, while a skeleton crew remained to sort of keep the servers online for ESO. This would make sense given the sudden reduction in DLC releases, the insanely obvious bugs that should never have made it to live, the fizzling out of the 10 year celebration and all, and with communication/transparency from ZOS at an all-time-low, my reasoning made sense.

This, however, is a horse of a different color. If they've been fighting tooth and nail with Microsoft to get anything done, that would explain perfectly why quality seems to have been in decline since the buyout, along with the reduced content releases, sloppy launches, rushed dev cycles, etc. I hope Microsoft gets it together and improves the working environment for all these dev teams they so ravenously consumed.

ArchangelIsraphel

endorphinsplox wrote: »

I've been feeling for a while, and even commented on it a few times, both here and in my videos that something weird is happening behind the scenes at ZOS. Quality has been in decline over the past couple of years, and is now in a nosedive for ESO as far as I'm concerned

When it comes to the cosmetic side of things, I've noticed a sharp decline in the quality of body markings and motifs, that's for sure. Ever since Necrom. We have this weird combination of genuinely good, really artistic body markings, then there are some where It feels like someone stamped it on the character. Not to mention pixelated quality on some of the event markings, low res textures that shouldn't be occurring, ext. Some of the recent motifs look like they're recycled from parts of other motifs, or they just all look the same.

There's new motifs where the quality doesn't even seem as good as the quality of the motifs that came out 3 years ago. Flat, dimensionless armor that looks very plasticy or papery...then there's leathery textures being put on metal armor...

I really have no idea if it's at all connected, but with some of these things, I just wonder how it passed through QA without being called out, because some recent things are of lower quality than what we were getting in expansions like Elsweyr.

LadyGP

To be fair... it takes Zeni ages to do things most studios can do in a few sprint cycles. Maybe they should go back into the office.

Theist_VII

Muizer wrote: »

@Theist_VII do you have any info that Microsoft's move to outsource QA had anything at all to do with the performance of QA? I mean 9 times out of 10 .............. well let's be realistic 99 times out of 100 outsourcing is about cutting cost and the people doing it know and accept (but don't say out loud) that it means that the quality of the work that will get done is going to go down even harder than the cost. I truly cannot imagine anyone would think outsourcing QA would lead to better QA. It's going to be worse. It always is.

Ignore everything below this line

Of course it could be any reason.

The purpose of what I wrote was to give my perspective of the Discussion after reading the article, to remind people of all of the QA failures we’ve been dealing with on Live servers for the last few years. Then to point out that they unionized to protect their positions, and then proceeded to give us some of the worst years of bugs we’ve ever seen and are now shocked that instead of pulling teeth trying to replace entrenched workers, Microsoft would go over them completely.

Ever hear one of the countless iterations of the saying? “How many union workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?…”

There’s truth to that saying.

darvaria

Would you expect anything different from Microsoft?

Rkindaleft

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

endorphinsplox wrote: »

I've been feeling for a while, and even commented on it a few times, both here and in my videos that something weird is happening behind the scenes at ZOS. Quality has been in decline over the past couple of years, and is now in a nosedive for ESO as far as I'm concerned

When it comes to the cosmetic side of things, I've noticed a sharp decline in the quality of body markings and motifs, that's for sure. Ever since Necrom. We have this weird combination of genuinely good, really artistic body markings, then there are some where It feels like someone stamped it on the character. Not to mention pixelated quality on some of the event markings, low res textures that shouldn't be occurring, ext. Some of the recent motifs look like they're recycled from parts of other motifs, or they just all look the same.

There's new motifs where the quality doesn't even seem as good as the quality of the motifs that came out 3 years ago. Flat, dimensionless armor that looks very plasticy or papery...then there's leathery textures being put on metal armor...

I really have no idea if it's at all connected, but with some of these things, I just wonder how it passed through QA without being called out, because some recent things are of lower quality than what we were getting in expansions like Elsweyr.

Either they moved a bunch of developers to their other "secret" project or they're no longer at the company but it's very obvious that the developer resources have been reduced. You can see it in the lack of content/quality of content. Issues and game problems take longer to fix now than they did even just a year or two ago and the lag thread that's been going on for close to 7 months now still isn't any closer to finding a resolution compared to when it started (and they're still asking for more information from players even though it's now been affecting a significant amount of people for more than half of the year).

May just be me but in the last 12 months at least it really has started to feel like the game is running on skeleton staff and just release enough new stuff to meet quotas.

Pelanora

Well this was an exciting day in the forums, this thread!

MasterSpatula

Theist_VII wrote: »

Ever hear one of the countless iterations of the saying? “How many union workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?…”

There’s truth to that saying.

Not in my union, there bloody well is not. We work ourselves absolutely to the bone. We have some small protections against our employers screwing us over in a variety of truly evil ways, but they manage to find new ways all the time. The employers negotiate with great vigor to keep our lives from getting even slightly better, and frequently win concessions that make our lives worse. We work our tails off, struggling to pay for housing that inflates far faster than our union-negotiated scales, constantly worried that outsourcing will take our jobs entirely, scrambling not to keep our health plan at the same level but just to keep it from getting much worse.

I'll thank you to cut it out with that victim-blaming propaganda.

Theist_VII

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

Ever hear one of the countless iterations of the saying? “How many union workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?…”

There’s truth to that saying.

Not in my union, there bloody well is not. We work ourselves absolutely to the bone. We have some small protections against our employers screwing us over in a variety of truly evil ways, but they manage to find new ways all the time. The employers negotiate with great vigor to keep our lives from getting even slightly better, and frequently win concessions that make our lives worse. We work our tails off, struggling to pay for housing that inflates far faster than our union-negotiated scales, constantly worried that outsourcing will take our jobs entirely, scrambling not to keep our health plan at the same level but just to keep it from getting much worse.

I'll thank you to cut it out with that victim-blaming propaganda.

I’m not victim blaming anyone, the majority of union members within this country do the absolute bare minimum of what’s required.

You don’t decide after 18 years of game development to unionize if you feel as though your work is valuable to your company.

The saying, “How many union workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?…” is derived from the knowledge that ~90% of labor is done by ~10% of the people within said groups, and you need to go through multiple workers to get the job done right.

If you fall into the ~10%, then sure, you’re going to be miserable, and that ~10% of our hard working QA is more than likely the same few who decided to protest to begin with because they are not being paid enough for their labor, but once again, the problem with unions, is that they protect those who should NOT be protected too, high ranked union members that sit pretty raking in money from years of experience they no longer need to apply, at the expense of everyone around them, co-workers and consumers.

Aliniel

Corporations are notoriously slow in decision making. I work for one, so I know this first hand. So, no surprises here.

The topic of home office is a tricky one. I have the luck to work from home without any issues, and it's been working fine for me. But I also know for a fact there are people who abuse this. It is hard for the employer to track their remote workers. We don't know why the decision was made. I expect there is some data about it.

I remember times when my company declined home offices because they had very negative experience with a few individuals who abused it terribly.

As for the outsourcing... the question here is "why". Are they trying to improve the QA of their product(s), or to replace their employees with "cheaper" ones? Again, corporations are notorious for outsourcing to countries where the work is way cheaper. E.g., India, Brazil, Argentina... This is typical for work such as customer support and QA which doesn't require hard-to-find specialists. Some positions are simply more easy to replace than others. This is true for all jobs, and more so when remote work is possible.

So, naturally, there's a dispute between the employer and the employees and it resulted in a strike to speed things up. I understand both parties, and honestly can't say who's side I am on. But more importantly - do we even need to take sides? We don't know the full story. Either of them could be "right". Hell, both of them could be right.

Pelanora

Ict is so expensive. For a small country like mine, and a small Government, for government services and basic functioning the amount of money pouring out into ict is just getting unaffordable.

These giant firms like Microsoft or amazon outsource routinely to try and keep a lid on costs, and customers are grateful.

It's a shame that then sweeps up companies like Bethesda and zenimax who are basically managing costs and staying affordable but got gobbled up and made to conform with a behemoths policies.

Elsonso

.

Rkindaleft wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

endorphinsplox wrote: »

I've been feeling for a while, and even commented on it a few times, both here and in my videos that something weird is happening behind the scenes at ZOS. Quality has been in decline over the past couple of years, and is now in a nosedive for ESO as far as I'm concerned

When it comes to the cosmetic side of things, I've noticed a sharp decline in the quality of body markings and motifs, that's for sure. Ever since Necrom. We have this weird combination of genuinely good, really artistic body markings, then there are some where It feels like someone stamped it on the character. Not to mention pixelated quality on some of the event markings, low res textures that shouldn't be occurring, ext. Some of the recent motifs look like they're recycled from parts of other motifs, or they just all look the same.

There's new motifs where the quality doesn't even seem as good as the quality of the motifs that came out 3 years ago. Flat, dimensionless armor that looks very plasticy or papery...then there's leathery textures being put on metal armor...

I really have no idea if it's at all connected, but with some of these things, I just wonder how it passed through QA without being called out, because some recent things are of lower quality than what we were getting in expansions like Elsweyr.

Either they moved a bunch of developers to their other "secret" project or they're no longer at the company but it's very obvious that the developer resources have been reduced. You can see it in the lack of content/quality of content. Issues and game problems take longer to fix now than they did even just a year or two ago and the lag thread that's been going on for close to 7 months now still isn't any closer to finding a resolution compared to when it started (and they're still asking for more information from players even though it's now been affecting a significant amount of people for more than half of the year).

May just be me but in the last 12 months at least it really has started to feel like the game is running on skeleton staff and just release enough new stuff to meet quotas.

It is not just you. It feels like a significant portion of the ESO development team is just missing.

ArchangelIsraphel

Theist_VII wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

Ever hear one of the countless iterations of the saying? “How many union workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?…”

There’s truth to that saying.

Not in my union, there bloody well is not. We work ourselves absolutely to the bone. We have some small protections against our employers screwing us over in a variety of truly evil ways, but they manage to find new ways all the time. The employers negotiate with great vigor to keep our lives from getting even slightly better, and frequently win concessions that make our lives worse. We work our tails off, struggling to pay for housing that inflates far faster than our union-negotiated scales, constantly worried that outsourcing will take our jobs entirely, scrambling not to keep our health plan at the same level but just to keep it from getting much worse.

I'll thank you to cut it out with that victim-blaming propaganda.

I’m not victim blaming anyone, the majority of union members within this country do the absolute bare minimum of what’s required.

You don’t decide after 18 years of game development to unionize if you feel as though your work is valuable to your company.

The saying, “How many union workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?…” is derived from the knowledge that ~90% of labor is done by ~10% of the people within said groups, and you need to go through multiple workers to get the job done right.

If you fall into the ~10%, then sure, you’re going to be miserable, and that ~10% of our hard working QA is more than likely the same few who decided to protest to begin with because they are not being paid enough for their labor, but once again, the problem with unions, is that they protect those who should NOT be protected too, like upper management that sit pretty raking in money from years of experience they no longer need to apply, at the expense of everyone around them, co-workers and consumers.

In most cases, managers and supervisors cannot even join unions. Every time I've held a union job in the past, managers weren't even permitted to touch union work because it's protected by the union, for union workers. The information you're providing isn't even correct, nor are the statistics you're quoting.

Strikes happen because someone is trying to negotiate ways of removing employee benefits, deny people hours and their rightful work, or are making the job somehow worse. Unions exist to protect workers from unfair practices. NOT because of poor work ethic, as you are attempting to imply.

If the union strikes, in most cases workers have no choice but to strike as well, because crossing union lines during a strike means losing your job once the strike is over. (So much fun in the middle of winter, been there, done that >_>)

I have no idea as to what is happening other than what I read in the article, but I absolutely do not blame the employees for being angry, or rising up against this situation. I hope they succeed in getting what's fair, and that the union does right by them.

Theist_VII

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

I have no idea as to what is happening other than what I read in the article, but I absolutely do not blame the employees for being angry, or rising up against this situation. I hope they succeed in getting what's fair, and that the union does right by them.

On a human level I do too, but as a consumer, I do not feel as though their work has improved so why should their pay?

While I get inflation is real, why expect higher pay when your customers are as discontent as ever? I’ve never seen as many doom posts as I have these past few years, because of so many friends leaving the game over these extremely easy to replicate problems that just happened to make it live.

We all know that when pay increases, so do costs.

What would that look like? A 10% increase to crown store costs? More rewards tied to the store and ripped from potential achievements?

What I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that those costs will not be felt by the company, and instead by us.

ArchangelIsraphel

Theist_VII wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

I have no idea as to what is happening other than what I read in the article, but I absolutely do not blame the employees for being angry, or rising up against this situation. I hope they succeed in getting what's fair, and that the union does right by them.

On a human level I do too, but as a consumer, I do not feel as though their work has improved so why should their pay?

While I get inflation is real, why expect higher pay when your customers are as discontent as ever? I’ve never seen as many doom posts as I have these past few years, because of so many friends leaving the game over these extremely easy to replicate problems that just happened to make it live.

We all know that when pay increases, so do costs.

What would that look like? A 10% increase to crown store costs? More rewards tied to the store and ripped from potential achievements?

What I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that those costs will not be felt by the company, and instead by us.

Why are we assuming that the in-house employees are responsible for the quality reductions rather than whatever outsourcing is occurring?

Theist_VII

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

I have no idea as to what is happening other than what I read in the article, but I absolutely do not blame the employees for being angry, or rising up against this situation. I hope they succeed in getting what's fair, and that the union does right by them.

On a human level I do too, but as a consumer, I do not feel as though their work has improved so why should their pay?

While I get inflation is real, why expect higher pay when your customers are as discontent as ever? I’ve never seen as many doom posts as I have these past few years, because of so many friends leaving the game over these extremely easy to replicate problems that just happened to make it live.

We all know that when pay increases, so do costs.

What would that look like? A 10% increase to crown store costs? More rewards tied to the store and ripped from potential achievements?

What I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that those costs will not be felt by the company, and instead by us.

Why are we assuming that the in-house employees are responsible for the quality reductions rather than whatever outsourcing is occurring?

Why are we assuming any outsourcing at ZOS has ramped up these past few years when people are only just now protesting over it?


From every article I’ve read providing coverage, it appears the problem is recent, and if it’s not, ZOS can come out of the woodwork to clarify it’s been an ongoing issue.

ArchangelIsraphel

Theist_VII wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

I have no idea as to what is happening other than what I read in the article, but I absolutely do not blame the employees for being angry, or rising up against this situation. I hope they succeed in getting what's fair, and that the union does right by them.

On a human level I do too, but as a consumer, I do not feel as though their work has improved so why should their pay?

While I get inflation is real, why expect higher pay when your customers are as discontent as ever? I’ve never seen as many doom posts as I have these past few years, because of so many friends leaving the game over these extremely easy to replicate problems that just happened to make it live.

We all know that when pay increases, so do costs.

What would that look like? A 10% increase to crown store costs? More rewards tied to the store and ripped from potential achievements?

What I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that those costs will not be felt by the company, and instead by us.

Why are we assuming that the in-house employees are responsible for the quality reductions rather than whatever outsourcing is occurring?

Why are we assuming any outsourcing has been occurring these past few years when people are only just now protesting over it?

Where’s your precedent?

I think its pretty clear that this situation hasn't just begun. Customers are usually the last to know about internal problems. It finally reached the breaking point, so now the media is reporting on it because workers are on strike. But in my experience, internal pressure that leads to unionization can last for years, and union negotiations themselves can last anywhere from months to an entire year. All of this may seem like it's happening "now", but I'm sure it's been boiling under the surface for quite some time. Multiple issues we've been seeing, along with other quality problems I've noticed, were not as bad until a certain company began to have a hand in things.

We've also seen increased issues with customer support and bans due to outsourcing that's been discussed in other threads.

Would you like to show me your precedent? Because so far, I haven't seen anything that proves that those who are on strike are in any way responsible for the quality issues.

Theist_VII

Okay, we can pretend that when QA fails to do their job it’s not the fault of QA, remember that next time you hire someone to do a job and it’s botched and you end up footing the bill.

That said, I’m not going to engage back and forth in this thread with someone who opens with, “in my experience” when in reality you could have absolutely no experience whatsoever, all while disregarding any experience that I have dealing with unionized workers at my place of business and how easy it is to draw parallels based on the quality of said work prior to Unionization and then after.

ArchangelIsraphel

Theist_VII wrote: »

Okay, we can pretend that when QA fails to do their job it’s not the fault of QA, remember that next time you hire someone to do a job and it’s botched and you end up footing the bill.

I've been running my current business successfully for over a decade without problems like that. It's amazing what people are willing to do, and what they can acomplish, when you provide them with the proper benefits, and listen to their needs with compassion, instead of outsourcing their work

Theist_VII

To assume a major corporation like Zenimax or Microsoft do not verify outsourced work before it meets us is to ignore the entire process of game dev collaboration.

kyle.wilson

I was under the belief that it was only the Bethesda employees that unionized.

Theist_VII

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

Ever hear one of the countless iterations of the saying? “How many union workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?…”

There’s truth to that saying.

Not in my union, there bloody well is not. We work ourselves absolutely to the bone. We have some small protections against our employers screwing us over in a variety of truly evil ways, but they manage to find new ways all the time. The employers negotiate with great vigor to keep our lives from getting even slightly better, and frequently win concessions that make our lives worse. We work our tails off, struggling to pay for housing that inflates far faster than our union-negotiated scales, constantly worried that outsourcing will take our jobs entirely, scrambling not to keep our health plan at the same level but just to keep it from getting much worse.

I'll thank you to cut it out with that victim-blaming propaganda.

I’m not victim blaming anyone, the majority of union members within this country do the absolute bare minimum of what’s required.

You don’t decide after 18 years of game development to unionize if you feel as though your work is valuable to your company.

The saying, “How many union workers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?…” is derived from the knowledge that ~90% of labor is done by ~10% of the people within said groups, and you need to go through multiple workers to get the job done right.

If you fall into the ~10%, then sure, you’re going to be miserable, and that ~10% of our hard working QA is more than likely the same few who decided to protest to begin with because they are not being paid enough for their labor, but once again, the problem with unions, is that they protect those who should NOT be protected too, like upper management that sit pretty raking in money from years of experience they no longer need to apply, at the expense of everyone around them, co-workers and consumers.

In most cases, managers and supervisors cannot even join unions. Every time I've held a union job in the past, managers weren't even permitted to touch union work because it's protected by the union, for union workers. The information you're providing isn't even correct, nor are the statistics you're quoting.

Just saw this and made a correction to the original body you replied to, yes, management are typically not part of a unions, but they are involved in QA ones.


That being said, I was referring to senior positions, and somehow my voice-to-text put “upper management” instead. Should be fixed now.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Jaraal wrote: »

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

No conspiracy here!

Outsourcing QA while at the same time demanding a return to the office does seem a bit perverse...

I'm facing it myself, during the various lockdowns of the Covid years bosses found that they really weren't needed. Well-organized, highly motivated employees just got on with the job - without constant oversight. Productivity did not suffer... so what is middle management for?

Better get the workers back to the office quick so that bosses can look busy ensuring that employees (now grumpy and less productive) are busy (not busy) sitting at their desks.

And the excuse? So that workers can benefit from those random water-cooler/coffee machine chance meetings that magically revolutionize how the company does its business. Given the RNG that ZoS implements that ain't going to happen.

And yet the studio director specifically stated that work from home was negatively impacting "team (both dev and QA) cohesion" and creating "errors and problems of various types."


https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/59387

Which indicates to me that ZOS communications problems are broader than the lack of communication with the player community. Having spent over half of my career as a remote employee in distributed departments, from home and remote offices, the only thing that damages team cohesion and injects errors into products/processes is poor communication. If you create an organization where people only talk about issues face to face in status meetings or things only get done if management walks into a programmer's cubicle then the process is broken.

People need to be trained to talk to and listen to their peers on other teams. Test being gated because they are waiting for a bug fix needs to be addressed with the bug owner immediately. The bug owner needs to have the flexibility to adjust their work load to keep test on track. You don't wait for the design specification review to point out design problems you notify the owner as soon as you can. None of this should involve management or require in-person status meetings. In fact it takes less precious time away from all parties if this is handled without any face to face time. All it requires is not staying within your bubble and communicating with those you work with.

Jaraal

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Multiple issues we've been seeing, along with other quality problems I've noticed, were not as bad until a certain company began to have a hand in things.

Isn't it funny that when the Microsoft acquisition was announced, the general sentiment was along the lines of, "Yay! Big Daddy and his unlimited checkbook is here to save the day! Now they can finally afford to fix all these problems!"

And yet, here we are.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Aliniel wrote: »

- snip -
As for the outsourcing... the question here is "why". Are they trying to improve the QA of their product(s), or to replace their employees with "cheaper" ones? Again, corporations are notorious for outsourcing to countries where the work is way cheaper. E.g., India, Brazil, Argentina... This is typical for work such as customer support and QA which doesn't require hard-to-find specialists. Some positions are simply more easy to replace than others. This is true for all jobs, and more so when remote work is possible.

- snip -

That QA or testing doesn't require a specialist is a fallacy that has been propagated for decades. It is one of the reasons software is so full of bugs. A good tester needs skills and product understanding to be able to build a comprehensive test suite. They also need to have a good handle on how customers will use or misuse the product being tested so they can design tests that will break a product's software the same as the customers will. A good performance tester will not only be able to use instrumentation to measure performance but will have the language, operating system and hardware knowledge so they can make recommendations on how to improve performance.

The problem has been test is too often under the same management as development. They see test as a cost not a revenue center which eats into their profits. They don't connect that test is directly tied to warranty costs and customer satisfaction and that every penny spent in test saves double, triple or more in warranty costs and customer satisfaction. In companies where the connection is made they usually end up being leaders but it usually takes a major negative event for that realization to occur.

Theist_VII

Jaraal wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Multiple issues we've been seeing, along with other quality problems I've noticed, were not as bad until a certain company began to have a hand in things.

Isn't it funny that when the Microsoft acquisition was announced, the general sentiment was along the lines of, "Yay! Big Daddy and his unlimited checkbook is here to save the day! Now they can finally afford to fix all these problems!"

And yet, here we are.

If Zenimax’s stocks were high from a successful product, they would not have been bought out.

People love to vilify Microsoft over every decision, and they do make some bad ones, but they have saved companies from bankruptcy, and who even knows if ESO would still be here if Microsoft didn’t bail them out.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Jaraal wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Multiple issues we've been seeing, along with other quality problems I've noticed, were not as bad until a certain company began to have a hand in things.

Isn't it funny that when the Microsoft acquisition was announced, the general sentiment was along the lines of, "Yay! Big Daddy and his unlimited checkbook is here to save the day! Now they can finally afford to fix all these problems!"

And yet, here we are.

Having dealt with Microsoft as both a competitor and a supplier to a couple of product lines and having spent my career in large bureaucratic company I never thought that. I thought the folks is ZOS were in for a big surprise once Microsoft decided to start enforcing its culture and business structure on them. A structure where divisions are required to make specific revenue goals and integrate common department functions into Microsoft organizations. I saw it happen in smaller companies acquired by my former employer and expected something similar to occur with Microsoft.

Jaraal

Theist_VII wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Multiple issues we've been seeing, along with other quality problems I've noticed, were not as bad until a certain company began to have a hand in things.

Isn't it funny that when the Microsoft acquisition was announced, the general sentiment was along the lines of, "Yay! Big Daddy and his unlimited checkbook is here to save the day! Now they can finally afford to fix all these problems!"

And yet, here we are.

People love to vilify Microsoft over every decision, and they do make some bad ones, but they have saved companies from bankruptcy, and who even knows if ESO would still be here if Microsoft didn’t bail them out.

Try telling that to the employees of Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Roundhouse Games.

Theist_VII

Jaraal wrote: »

Try telling that to the employees of Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Roundhouse Games.

“People love to vilify Microsoft over every decision, and they do make some bad ones, but they have saved companies from bankruptcy, and who even knows if ESO would still be here if Microsoft didn’t bail them out.”

That said, the only one of those studios that didn’t deserve it from a business standpoint is Tango Gameworks, they produced a masterpiece and got axed for no reason.

Redfall was atrocious and I hate how a studio of one of my favorite games produced it. That game could have been so much better if Arkane Austin put in as much work on it as they did Dishonored, but they pushed Live Service and released an unfinished game.

When QA fails, it makes patches look unfinished, and if I were in their position, I would be afraid of my department getting shut down too, or in this case, outsourced.

alternatelder

Theist_VII wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Multiple issues we've been seeing, along with other quality problems I've noticed, were not as bad until a certain company began to have a hand in things.

Isn't it funny that when the Microsoft acquisition was announced, the general sentiment was along the lines of, "Yay! Big Daddy and his unlimited checkbook is here to save the day! Now they can finally afford to fix all these problems!"

And yet, here we are.

If Zenimax’s stocks were high from a successful product, they would not have been bought out.

People love to vilify Microsoft over every decision, and they do make some bad ones, but they have saved companies from bankruptcy, and who even knows if ESO would still be here if Microsoft didn’t bail them out.

ESO was doing fine before the acquisition. Everyone can see the quality drop soon after MS took hold.