I am still in shock and this did not have to happen. Corporations are so fixated on money when they have billions. It only shows how disconnected they are from the player-base and why they will definitely lose players. I think this talented group of people need to create their own company. Definitely going to miss all the dev streams and this just tosses the future of ESO up in the air. I hope it doesn't go the way of D2!

Marto wrote: »

DeathandDebauchery wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

Nearly the entire writing team has been laid off... If not all, as we haven't yet heard from all of them.



This is absolutely inexcusable. How? How??

This is the team that has literally kept the Elder Scrolls setting and franchise alive for the past decade.

What is supposed to happen now? How are you going to release the planned Skyrim zone without anyone to write dialogue, books, songs, lore, or quests?

Hundreds of years of experience and knowledge, down the drain. This is shameful. Absolutely disgusting. At what point do studio leads have to stand up, put their foot down, and tell their bosses this cannot be allowed to happen?

Where is this image from?

These are the credits for Seasons of the Worm cult. They may not be fully accurate, as devs were shifted around this year. But it's the best thing we have at the moment. The ones I didn't mark with red or green are the ones who haven't said anything about the layoffs on social media or updated their LinkedIn.

More up-to-date credits can be seen in-game, those haven't been added to the ESO website yet.

duagloth wrote: »

Thought we werent allowed good bye threads?

“I hate this game, I quit” does not equal “these people have left the game against their will”. Threads about people who have died have stayed up too. It’s just people who are quitting themselves.

hiyde wrote: »

I couldn't find any official info on what profit or loss the Gaming Division is or isn't making (though I have seen references to profits being "only 3%". )

Read Asha Sharma's email.

Seeing Rich added to that list does not inspire confidence…

AnduinTryggva wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

So many staff members is a really bad sign. Can't believe Gina and Finn got hit. I'll miss seeing them. I'm so sad for all affected.

Do we know why they got the boot?

My guess as a manager at a global company who had to participate in firings -

I believe the new Asha was brought in to be brutal and make huge cuts while she had no attachment to anyone. From an HR perspective, the employees become numbers on a spreadsheet with higher paid employees being prime targets. My former company fired top performers because they also made the most money, but the value they brought to the organization was overlooked by executives with no experience being at the ground level and little to no understanding as to who is important or why.

Oftentimes they believe other employees are redundant and think they can pile on 3 or 4 peoples' jobs on the few who are left until they cannot handle anymore.

This usually creates short-term improvements on financial reports via cost savings at the expense of long-term profits and employee morale.

But just my perspective, and I haven't a clue as to their actual motives.

hiyde wrote: »

AzuraFan wrote: »

hiyde wrote: »

I couldn't find any official info on what profit or loss the Gaming Division is or isn't making (though I have seen references to profits being "only 3%". )

Read Asha Sharma's email.

Apologies, I'm dense. Can you point out the relevant parts to what I've been talking about?

I see a reference to the games division operating at "lower margins" which I took to mean lower profit margins, not "operating at a loss".
I see a reference to the games division not *growing* at the rate expected.
I see a reference to the games division losing 64 cents "on every dollar invested"

A lot of this goes over my head. I don't have a business degree. What I couldn't find was "games division is taking a loss", "Zenimax/ZOS/Bethesda" is operating at a loss or anything like that.

If I'm misreading, please let me know. Like a lot of folks, I'm trying to understand all of this.

So, it isn't about Zenimax/Zos/Bethesda anymore. That is, they are not a stand-a-lone company or studio, they are a branch or slice-of-pie in a bigger whole. Xbox is the division and this company is part of that division, and the division as a whole is not performing to the expectations of the even larger parent company Microsoft. Thus, the new CEO of Xbox, a division of Microsoft, looked at everything in the division and devised a plan to make that division (at least on paper) look better financially as a WHOLE to the people she has to answer to, which is the C-suite of Microsoft itself, and their board, and then indirectly the share holders. Thus, she made cuts division wide, and is even offloading currently 5 studios to fully get them off her balance sheet.

Her plan is to not "PAY FOR TALENT" or that is, pay the premium benefit packages that come with longstanding employees or employees that get paid top talent salaries for their length of time in gaming or at a company. That talent and dedication become detrimental to the employee, as cutting them saves more money with less job losses.

Example:

If ZOS has a 4 different dev teams working on different aspects of the game, and each dev team has a team leader (who is likely an experienced or long standing employee) and then those team leads reports to the Development Team Head (who is an even higher salaried employee) who then goes and reports to the Project Lead who then reports to the Game Director, who then reports to the Studio Director, etc and so forth...she can cut out those leadership roles which is a loss of 5-7 employees that get paid more than being just a standard dev, but keep the grunt dev workers that do the everyday in and out job. Thus the game can still have development and at a lower cost, while also forcing everyone to take on more duties at likely the same pay rate. Thus, now there will just be the Studio Director who will maybe still have a Project Lead that has to now oversee all the devs as 1 large team and take on the task of dividing the work themselves among the devs, and those devs have less resources in the development process to get the job done meaning they have to figure things out on-their-own without having more experienced people to ask for help.

It doesn't really have to do with the profitability of Zos itself, but with the profitability of the division as a whole and getting rid of what the XBOX CEO considers bloat and inefficient cost structures, which will in the short-term, as people have already commented, make the division of Xbox look more profitable, because she is cutting millions in benefits and salaries off the accounting spreadsheet.

But, as always, everything is not so cut and dry. We are looking at it as a loss of faces to a game we like or love. People that we know through livestreams and maybe some have met at shows or events. And we also are worried what that means for the game we like/love and its future....So we have a personal investment in what is happening, and of course those losing their jobs are losing their livelihoods and many are people who likely thought their time, dedication, experience, to the game were safeguards in being laid-off, as the saying is last in, first out....but the XBOX CEO took a different approach and let go solely based on salary and if she considered your role redundant or "bloat."

Even more at play is what XBOX is trying to shift the company into being. They have spent that last few years under their older leadership buying up studios to create owned game IP, and moving to games not being XBOX exclusives, which has lowered the value of the XBOX name and brand while create higher cost structures. That is, unlike Nintendo, which is the strongest example, that fully owns huge IP that they do not allow anywhere and tightly control use of, keeps generation after generation the company alive and highly profitable, while releasing subpar or less powerful gaming systems than their competitors. If you want to play this IP, you must buy into their ecosystem or not play at all. In truth, that power is what all the game divisions want. XBOX has completely lost this generation console wars, while creating the most powerful machine and at a lower cost. And that is because XBOX went digital content only and having no real Exclusive IP or really 3 games that couldn't be played elsewhere. XBOX just premiered 2 games that will be XBOX only and have now said every game that is created in-house will be decided case-by-case on being XBOX only or released on multiple platforms.

ESO is a game that XBOX can not monetize in such a way. It has been out for over a decade, and is almost ubiquitous on where you can play it. This also, is while having a much smaller player base and income than WOW by Blizzard, which XBOX ALSO OWNS. So when she was looking at ZOS and how the company is structured, and the salaries involved, compared to her other gaming divisions like BLIZZARD and WOW, ESO makes less money (profitable or not) yet likely had a similar cost in operation and amount of employees....that makes ESO and ZOS look bad in comparison.....and also unlike, ELDER SCROLLS 6 she can not making it an XBOX exclusive thus ensuring people will need to buy into the XBOX ecosystem if they want to play it.

Let us be honest, as much as I love this game, and it is only 1 of 2 games I play...honestly...I have 2 games in my steam library, and I have been here since 2016, Zennimax/Bethesda was not purchased for ESO. It was purchased for Fallout and Elder Scrolls. When they already have the largest, and one of the oldest MMORPGs on the market, that is also the most profitable out of all MMORPGs in WOW (which i have never played and have no interest in) then everything else is expendable in that gaming sphere, if ESO makes it and becomes as profitable XBOX will rejoice and love the money and say she made the right moves. If it dies, and gets shut down or becomes a maintence mode game, it is not a huge loss to Microsoft as they only own it because it was part of something else they wanted.

AzuraFan wrote: »

hiyde wrote: »

I see a reference to the games division losing 64 cents "on every dollar invested"

A lot of this goes over my head. I don't have a business degree. What I couldn't find was "games division is taking a loss", "Zenimax/ZOS/Bethesda" is operating at a loss or anything like that.

If I'm misreading, please let me know. Like a lot of folks, I'm trying to understand all of this.

It's right there in what you quoted. The games division is losing 64 cents on every dollar invested. IOW, the games division is taking a loss. They invest $1 but only get 36 cents in return. That's a huge loss.

She didn't specifically mention Zenimax/ZOS/Bethesda, but my original point to you was that the XBOX division (the games division) is in trouble. It's bleeding cash. It's irrelevant how much revenue/capital Microsoft has. People have said, well, it's got billions, it should be investing that into the games division. It has been. As above, for every dollar it has invested, it has LOST 64 cents. So MS is done subsidising it (keeping it afloat, propping it up).

So, "losing 64 cents on every dollar invested" = games division overall is operating at a 64% loss (and not a thin 3% profit)?

hiyde wrote: »

AzuraFan wrote: »

hiyde wrote: »

I see a reference to the games division losing 64 cents "on every dollar invested"

A lot of this goes over my head. I don't have a business degree. What I couldn't find was "games division is taking a loss", "Zenimax/ZOS/Bethesda" is operating at a loss or anything like that.

If I'm misreading, please let me know. Like a lot of folks, I'm trying to understand all of this.

It's right there in what you quoted. The games division is losing 64 cents on every dollar invested. IOW, the games division is taking a loss. They invest $1 but only get 36 cents in return. That's a huge loss.

She didn't specifically mention Zenimax/ZOS/Bethesda, but my original point to you was that the XBOX division (the games division) is in trouble. It's bleeding cash. It's irrelevant how much revenue/capital Microsoft has. People have said, well, it's got billions, it should be investing that into the games division. It has been. As above, for every dollar it has invested, it has LOST 64 cents. So MS is done subsidising it (keeping it afloat, propping it up).

So, "losing 64 cents on every dollar invested" = games division overall is operating at a 64% loss (and not a thin 3% profit)?

That has been reported and that is truly difficult for a large corp to want to continue investing in. Also it's been mentioned for years that MS is over-diversified in domains for what is bringing profit to the company. MS is also publicly traded so it's going to server investors as well. I don't personally like when people are let go to adjust to markets and business decisions (which I wondered why MS wanted to invest in gaming in the first place.) As I remember they were trying to compete with Sony and they never were able to catch up. May be wrong there.

My heart goes out to the people displaced. It's really difficult being a developer right now.

hiyde wrote: »

And that's my point. We don't know, because instead of being direct, they used creative wordplay that the average layperson (like me) would misinterpret or be confused by.

Business people and others who aren't laypersons in this area all agree that the XBox division is not performing well. Sharma's email points out that even though they're investing more money than their competitors, they're making less. So while you and I might not understand the details, those who do agree that things are grim at XBox. These layoffs are shocking in the sense that the ZOS team lost a lot of good people, but they're not shocking in the sense that they were unexpected. Everyone knew the hammer was going to drop and even knew that it was going to happen on July 6.

We were all hoping that ZOS wouldn't be affected because (apparently - we don't know for sure) ESO is self-sustaining at the moment in the financial department. But maybe it isn't. Or maybe it's not making enough of a profit for MS to continue investing the same amount. We don't know.

Personally, I'm going to keep playing for as long as I get enjoyment from the game...

Same here.

IMO it’s very early to criticize here.

It’s no surprise that ESO hasn’t been in the best state for some time. A lot of people have dedicated a lot of time & effort into testing, playing, and giving detailed feedback and suggestions on game improvement.

Some of that feedback was taken and applied but much more of it was not. Based on statements from some of the Dev team members it’s clear that proper attention wasn’t given to aspects of the game the way that it should have been.

There have been so many threads and comments complaining about struggles finding groups for content and the declining population. The game has seen a significant drop in player population over just the last two years.

In many ways the creative & technical teams did a good job with the direction of the game; but in a lot of ways they simply didn’t do a good job.

Players are also customers. When players give broad feedback that certain creative & technical directions aren’t wanted or are obviously not good for the gameplay experience they’re going to respond accordingly when they’re ignored and those things are done anyway.

I had similar issues when I game tested for EA with SW Battlefront II. They refused to listen to the lions share of their community that was giving them detailed and data driven feedback and player concerns of critically poor mechanics. Rather than listening they treated the title as their personal art project and the result was a sudden and early EoL call and the death of a game that could have, and should have, gone on for some time given that it’s part of one of the largest franchises in history. Rather, it fell off silently into mediocrity.

As a general rule in business, if a product has a healthy revenue stream and positive metrics then you don’t mess with it. It’s only once an organization starts to show declining metrics or revenue trends that you get big reactions like layoffs, mergers, P/E involvement, etc.

This is an opportunity for not just Microsoft but ZoS / Bethesda to take a real good look at data; consolidate board feedback for pros & cons, develop a new roadmap forward, and staff to meet that roadmaps goals. If they do it right we’ll see a better quality ESO product that more people want to play and spend money on. If they don’t, it turns into a death spiral.

Radiate77 wrote: »

Seeing Rich added to that list does not inspire confidence…

Whoa, really? This is the first time I've really checked in since the new broke yesterday.

On the one hand, I won't miss him. But on the other hand, he was the very embodiment of The Company Man. Yeah.

Let's hope the new team/managemant gets their mudballs together and actually starts maintaining/fixing the game instead of just changing random things (new wayshrine sound yay?).

There are bug in this game literally older than my niece.

I just came to enjoy Asha Sharma's professional vita.
Well, let's say, she knows how to ride a wave, and yet, that doesn't make her a surfer.
I have not seen anyone that young of age having fired soooo many people already.

Oh.
And she just recently started playing console games, too!
I am glad our beloved game is in caring hands,
experienced in the gaming industry.
Not.

Gotta say when I spent time with my duo in my main house and used the time and weather changer to bring out the auroran lights at proudspire, it did depress me to think that whoever made that happen might no longer be here. The game isnt perfect but the parts that are good, are really good.