I would urge for an official MSoft / Xbox statement

Nemesis7884 · July 9

I would urge MSoft / Xbox / Asha Sharma for an official statement - even on this forum what their future plans are for ESO and the commitment that its still a part of the Elder Scrolls franchise they want to invest into in the future (since apparently Elder Scrolls 6 is still 2-3 years out according to Jason Schreier).

I understand -of course- Zenimax love the game, will commit and do anything they can...but just adding the numbers - from the original 200? employees, looking at all the reports there only seem to be 50ish left...what can you even do with that beyond kicking the ball down the road? And so any statement from Zenimax for me would be pretty meaningless to be honest as they are also just a piece on the board.

The reason why I think an official Xbox statement is very important is because otherwise a doom spiral can start - when players start to expect the game will downwind they will spend less time and money on the game and move on which of course will not instill more confidence in MSoft or lead to more investments....

And im gonna be brutally honest - im here since beta, ESO is pretty much my main game and i have been spending annually ~2000 bucks on the game...and I have no issues with that - I have the money to spend and like to support the game...but without an official commitment from Xbox/MSoft about its future, I am just not willing to spend anymore additional funds in something I dont know will be around in a year....

Arunei · July 9

Where did you hear ESO's team was 200 members to begin with? As far as I'm aware we have no actual official numbers of how many people were working on the game. Even with the WARN numbers that have come out recently and the initial claim of roughly half the active team being let go, 213 would be half of 400. Which means they still have at least roughly 200. BUT. Again, we don't know how accurate the roughly "half the team" statement is correct, because like I said, afaik we have no actual solid numbers on how big the team was. It could be closer to 300 that's left than 200.

At any rate, we've already been told a couple of times now that they need time. They will give us a statement when they've had the time to evaluate everything. People repeatedly asking for one won't make it come any quicker.

Edit because I accidentally several words.

Lagzee · July 9

Arunei wrote: »

Where did you hear ESO's team was 200 members to begin with? As far as I'm aware we have no actual official numbers of how many people were working on the game, and even with the WARN numbers that have come out recently and the initial claim of roughly half the active team, 213 would be half of 400. Which means they still have at least roughly 200. BUT. Again, we don't know how accurate the roughly "half the team" is correct, because like I said, afaik we have no actual solid numbers on how big the team was. It could be closer to 300 that's left than 200.

At any rate, we've already been told a couple of times now that they need time. They will give us a statement when they've had the time to evaluate everything. People repeatedly asking for one won't make it come any quicker.

its so tiring at this point. Especially because so many people claim to love eso or care about zos. I understand people are concerned but like we just dont know anything, including how many people were on the team. And clearly they need time to sort everything out. That Katherine woman claimed half of people currently working on content, but not half of the entire team. So really all we have to go on, from someone at zos, for now, is that post. People just need to be a little patient and not over react, for now.

Nemesis7884 · July 9

Arunei wrote: »

Where did you hear ESO's team was 200 members to begin with? As far as I'm aware we have no actual official numbers of how many people were working on the game. Even with the WARN numbers that have come out recently and the initial claim of roughly half the active team being let go, 213 would be half of 400. Which means they still have at least roughly 200. BUT. Again, we don't know how accurate the roughly "half the team" statement is correct, because like I said, afaik we have no actual solid numbers on how big the team was. It could be closer to 300 that's left than 200.

At any rate, we've already been told a couple of times now that they need time. They will give us a statement when they've had the time to evaluate everything. People repeatedly asking for one won't make it come any quicker.

Edit because I accidentally several words.

Rather 2/3 of the eso team were let go now not half accoding to WARN (-200 ppl at zenimax online and 160 at zenimax media) - see reddit for exact numbers; so they would have had more than 200...so doom is pretty appropriate about now

cyberjanet · July 9

Let them do their statement it on a Live Stream. Let them understand exactly what they were paying Gina Bruno for, to take the flack of a dissatisfied gaming community yet still stay professional and calm. I doubt they would do as well, they would probably cut the stream short.

YffresTrill · July 9

An official corporate statement would only be meaningless PR speak, probably half-true at best, and would only irritate as many, if not more than, people as it would calm.

I would rather wait for a statement directly from the devs. This is slightly less likely to be completely meaningless.

Malprave · July 9

I don't think there's going to be any official statement that unravels everything going on here. I think there's too much to unpack.

But as far as Zos Maryland facility, it's represented by two unions that list over 400 employees. And Zos has four or five other locations, one in Budapest Hungary, where a company was purchased to make content for ESO.

I don't think the full extent of what's going on here is going to be covered in a PR statement. And if there was one I don't know if players would be happier or angrier. But I don't think the game is in any danger of going anywhere.

SkaiFaith · July 9

OP, what did you think when last year you heard "ESO is a 30 years long game"? That statement came after ZOS layoffs, and if I am not misremembering, not only the new head of ZOS said it but also Phil Spencer. If you are like me you may have thought: "yes! Let's go! Now we'll get more resources and talent focused on ESO!"

How did that work out?

Hearing from Asha "ESO Is a 100 years long game" would make me go like "sure buddy, sure..."
I understand the sentiment, but feeling reassured by such statements would be delusional.

I'm not saying we shouldn't trust ESO Devs; I'm saying corpo speech is corpo speech - don't take it too seriously. Look at rainbow profile pictures from various corpos: were all over in 2020-2024 but where have they gone?

Devs may care for you and for the game. Corpo cares about profitability, shareholders happiness and graphs that go up.

(I'm starting to think I should screenshot what I type to not see it disappear)

Firstmep · July 9

400 ppl working on this game the last couple of years feels very wierd to me. The amount of content that was put out had me guessing like 50 at best.

LadyGP · July 9

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

I would urge MSoft / Xbox / Asha Sharma for an official statement - even on this forum what their future plans are for ESO and the commitment that its still a part of the Elder Scrolls franchise they want to invest into in the future (since apparently Elder Scrolls 6 is still 2-3 years out according to Jason Schreier).

I understand -of course- Zenimax love the game, will commit and do anything they can...but just adding the numbers - from the original 200? employees, looking at all the reports there only seem to be 50ish left...what can you even do with that beyond kicking the ball down the road? And so any statement from Zenimax for me would be pretty meaningless to be honest as they are also just a piece on the board.

The reason why I think an official Xbox statement is very important is because otherwise a doom spiral can start - when players start to expect the game will downwind they will spend less time and money on the game and move on which of course will not instill more confidence in MSoft or lead to more investments....

And im gonna be brutally honest - im here since beta, ESO is pretty much my main game and i have been spending annually ~2000 bucks on the game...and I have no issues with that - I have the money to spend and like to support the game...but without an official commitment from Xbox/MSoft about its future, I am just not willing to spend anymore additional funds in something I dont know will be around in a year....

.... you think the CEO of Xbox... is going to come on the forums... and make a statement?

You're just trolling, right?

Nemesis7884 · July 9

SkaiFaith wrote: »

OP, what did you think when last year you heard "ESO is a 30 years long game"? That statement came after ZOS layoffs, and if I am not misremembering, not only the new head of ZOS said it but also Phil Spencer. If you are like me you may have thought: "yes! Let's go! Now we'll get more resources and talent focused on ESO!"

How did that work out?

Hearing from Asha "ESO Is a 100 years long game" would make me go like "sure buddy, sure..."
I understand the sentiment, but feeling reassured by such statements would be delusional.

I'm not saying we shouldn't trust ESO Devs; I'm saying corpo speech is corpo speech - don't take it too seriously. Look at rainbow profile pictures from various corpos: were all over in 2020-2024 but where have they gone?

Devs may care for you and for the game. Corpo cares about profitability, shareholders happiness and graphs that go up.

(I'm starting to think I should screenshot what I type to not see it disappear)

And im sure Phil meant it and thats why I wan a statement from the NEW head of xbox that just fired all the people - I have no clue what her idea for ESO is since she never said so ONLY that elder scrolls has higher focus in the future. Does this mean ESO too or not?