Xbox CEO letter sent to employees regarding restructuring explains a lot

Gabriel_H · July 10

code65536 wrote: »

First, if you look at the list of people they lost, many of them are not managers.

True, but a lot of them were also jobs that don't need full time staff all year round. Animators, VFX, SFX etc. it is not unreasonable to believe that they don't need to spend 40 hours a week working on ESO, and their time can be split between various studios.

LittlePinkDot · July 10

A game made by 33 people for only 10 million just won Game of the Year. I'm sure this turned alot of heads and shareholders of studios with thousands of people are probably wondering why there's so much bloat with little to show for it.

tomofhyrule · July 10

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

A game made by 33 people for only 10 million just won Game of the Year. I'm sure this turned alot of heads and shareholders of studios with thousands of people are probably wondering why there's so much bloat with little to show for it.

If that's the case, that only shows they don't understand anything.

The recent GOTY winners that were made by smaller studios did as well as they did because the one thing they didn't have was corporate overlords. Those projects were filled with passion. They had writers who cared deeply. Their first priority was the players.

As long as AAA studios are focused on money, as long as HR is sitting in the writers rooms, as long as the target audience is some concept that they don't understand... it's not gonna work.

LittlePinkDot · July 10

tomofhyrule wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

A game made by 33 people for only 10 million just won Game of the Year. I'm sure this turned alot of heads and shareholders of studios with thousands of people are probably wondering why there's so much bloat with little to show for it.

If that's the case, that only shows they don't understand anything.

The recent GOTY winners that were made by smaller studios did as well as they did because the one thing they didn't have was corporate overlords. Those projects were filled with passion. They had writers who cared deeply. Their first priority was the players.

As long as AAA studios are focused on money, as long as HR is sitting in the writers rooms, as long as the target audience is some concept that they don't understand... it's not gonna work.

You're not wrong.
But there had to have been some kind of bureaucracy, redundancy and bloat at Bethesda. Any maybe the corporate overlords are part of that. But Skyrim came out 2011. We still dont have Elder Scrolls 6.
And when Starfield came out it was obvious they used the same outdated Creation Engine. At that point so many were thinking "Just use Unreal Engine 5. For Elder Scrolls 6."
There seems to be a case of "resting on one's laurels."
What the heck has been going on over there for 15 years?

Warhawke_80 · July 10

Soarora wrote: »

Xorious wrote: »

ESO will endure.

Even if ZOS is made to close its doors, ESO will endure. I’m sure the community will find a way to make it happen.

Considering you can still play Myst:Uru ...you're probably right, though I wouldn't touch ESO's engine with a ten foot pole.....and I've been doing this awhile

IZZEFlameLash · July 11

nb_rich wrote: »

After reading that and some peoples comments it seems like they made the right decision to hopefully make the game better. Of course I never wish that people have to lose their jobs but when it comes to the health of the game it might be good.

From my point of view it seems like they were behind on tasks, hired more people and were still not getting accomplished what Microsoft asking them to do. Im assuming with the number of employees laid off from this studio specifically, it was one of the studios that had up to 14 levels of management to go through.

Imagine how many times someone doesn’t agree with something so it has to be looked over again or how many times an idea is on someones desk that gets missed. Then when it gets close to there deadline they rush and put out unpolished content.

Yes, let us take the corporate speak at its face value. Because they would never lie to us. Yep, never.

Surely, cutting staff in active studios would produce more games quickly and efficiently and make Xbox whole again with even more games pushed out for it.

Pixiepumpkin · July 11

LalMirchi wrote: »

From another interview with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma:

"I want XBOX to be one of the few companies that entertains more than a billion people each day and gives everyone the opportunity to create and connect. I know we can achieve this goal. XBOX has many of the most beloved franchises in entertainment history, talented studios around the world, and we will return to growth in 2027."

The last statement sounds very unrealistic and full of hubris. How can they return to growth in 2027 when they've sacked all the workers? A billion daily users is another hyperbolic claim.

Right. "More than a billion each day"...half the world (4 Billionish) live under 10 dollars a day. I am bad at math, but by my calculations that roughs out to be about 300 dollars a month. I am not sure if that number is adjusted for currency/inflation or if its based solely on USD, regardless it would appear to me that Xbox, the cost of its games and/or even the service would be out of reach for much of the popultion as their prices DO get adjusted to maintain a USD price, which would ensure most folks can not afford it.

There is also the hubris, as you noted, of the assumption that 1/8+ of the world popluation even cares about Xbox games. I have been "gaming" since the late 70's (never labled myself a "gamer" though). I had the original Xbox, saw no reason to buy another after that one.

So even within the "gaming" community there are tons of folks who have no interest in Xbox.

She is amazingly out of touch with reality. How do people like this get into these positions.

Pixiepumpkin · July 11

Gabriel_H wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history.

Gee, I wonder why.

What I find hilarious about it all is that chip manufacturers, including RAM/VRAM, are putting all their efforts into AI, causing a shortage and spike in prices of commercial hardware.

They are fully aware of this.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

If this trend continues, we are going to have 394928438902309209 AI data centres, and no personal computers capable of utilising them.

You assume they want people having personal computers. I would assert they do not. PC's give too much power to the individual. They want people consuming their AI slop on dedicated hardware/software and phones, not so much a regular jack of all trades PC.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

As usual, capitalism returns short-term profits at the expense of basic common sense.

[snip]
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ADarklore · July 11

CAB_Life wrote: »

Gina and Finn are literally senior management for their departments, they already canned Frior last round of cuts who was director level management. Kira was senior lead in her department, too. Again, I’m not making any kind of concessions or appeasement for Sharma, but she is doing what is laid out in the letter. They always fire/ package out people with tenure when cutting because they earn so much more than a new employee.

They didn't 'can' Matt Firor, he quit because he was peeved over what they did to his team after all their effort. It's interesting- and the one termination this time around that I actually agree with- was Rich Lambert. They 'promoted' him to a pointless job after Matt quit instead of promoting him over ESO- so it was even clear at that point that Rich was no longer considered essential to upper management.

Gabriel_H · July 11

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Right. "More than a billion each day"...half the world (4 Billionish) live under 10 dollars a day.

As it stands today the latest estimates are around the 500m mark. How? Because XBox Gaming ~= XBoxes. For example: Minecraft is part of XBox Gaming, it has over 200m monthly users. Activision, Blizzard, and many others all have games with tens, if not hundreds, of millions of users. That's before even getting into smartphone games: There may be 4bn earning less than $10 dollars a day, but there are 4.8bn smartphone users.

The 1 billion is somewhat hyperbolic, that is to be expected in corporate speak, but it also has to be realistically obtainable or it will tank the share price.

Gabriel_H · July 11

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

You assume they want people having personal computers. I would assert they do not. PC's give too much power to the individual. They want people consuming their AI slop on dedicated hardware/software and phones, not so much a regular jack of all trades PC.

You get the same applies to chips in smartphones, right?! Do I really have to dig out Tim Apple's [sic] comments?!

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

[snip]

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Nomadic_Atmoran · July 11

nb_rich wrote: »

After reading that and some peoples comments it seems like they made the right decision to hopefully make the game better. Of course I never wish that people have to lose their jobs but when it comes to the health of the game it might be good.

From my point of view it seems like they were behind on tasks, hired more people and were still not getting accomplished what Microsoft asking them to do. Im assuming with the number of employees laid off from this studio specifically, it was one of the studios that had up to 14 levels of management to go through.

Imagine how many times someone doesn’t agree with something so it has to be looked over again or how many times an idea is on someones desk that gets missed. Then when it gets close to there deadline they rush and put out unpolished content.

They didn't lay these people off to make a better experience. If that was the case they would not have let go people that are largely liked and appreciated by the gamers spending money here. People that wrote really good stories. Created some of the most memorable content you can engage with. Its one thing to prune the tree. Its another to hack and lob off entire healthy limbs.

Pixiepumpkin · July 11

Gabriel_H wrote: »

As it stands today the latest estimates are around the 500m mark. How? Because XBox Gaming ~= XBoxes. For example: Minecraft is part of XBox Gaming, it has over 200m monthly users. Activision, Blizzard, and many others all have games with tens, if not hundreds, of millions of users. That's before even getting into smartphone games: There may be 4bn earning less than $10 dollars a day, but there are 4.8bn smartphone users.

500 million away from reaching her goal. Not an easy proposition.
Secondly many of those "millions of players" play the same games, you assume each game account is a different person, that is the only way they'd reach 1B a day.
4.8B smartphone users does not equate to a game account. I play zero games on my phone, and again I have played games since hte 70's. My wife does not play games on her phone.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

The 1 billion is somewhat hyperbolic, that is to be expected in corporate speak, but it also has to be realistically obtainable or it will tank the share price.

Share prices will drop, not sure about tank but 1b a day is WAY to optimistic of a goal and frankly not achievable. Socially the world is not getting better, its getting worse. Less people are interested in games than 10 years ago and its declining.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

You get the same applies to chips in smartphones, right?! Do I really have to dig out Tim Apple's [sic] comments?!

and yet 10x less expensive than an equivelant PC.

They want people having phones, they don't want people having PC's.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

[snip]

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Ishtarknows · July 12

I find it interesting that the "severe hardware crisis" she mention as a reason for culling the game dev portfolio is a product of her (and all the other AI focussed companies) own making.

Warhawke_80 · July 12

Ishtarknows wrote: »

I find it interesting that the "severe hardware crisis" she mention as a reason for culling the game dev portfolio is a product of her (and all the other AI focussed companies) own making.

I dunno...I watched her on Bloomberg, and she talked for twenty minuets, but really didn't say anything...I'm not hopeful for ESO's future