The big July bloodbath perpetrated by the Redmond-based tech giant resulted in Matt Firor leaving Microsoft.
Firor, the former director of The Elder Scrolls Online, revealed why he unexpectedly left ZeniMax Online Studios in July after nearly 20 years. It probably comes as no surprise that Microsoft’s layoffs are responsible for this. On July 2, Microsoft laid off approximately 9,000 people, many of whom were from the Xbox division. Xbox boss Phil Spencer made this massacre even more grotesque when he stated at the time of the layoffs that the company’s gaming business had never been better. The layoffs included the cancellation of several projects, such as the Perfect Dark reboot (and The Initiative, which was working on it, was also shut down), Rare’s Everwild project, and an unannounced MMO developed by ZeniMax under the codename Blackbird. The loss of Blackbird prompted Firor, an industry veteran who co-founded Mythic Entertainment in 1995, to leave the studio he helped launch in 2007.
Firor wrote on LinkedIn that Project Blackbird was the game he had wanted to create his entire career and that its cancellation led to his resignation. He said that his heart and thoughts are always with the team members involved, many of whom he had worked with for over 20 years. They formed the most dedicated and incredibly talented development group in the industry. Firor said he is not directly involved in projects created by former ZeniMax employees, such as Sackbird Studios, which was founded in October by a group of former The Elder Scrolls Online and Project Blackbird developers. He advises some of them informally but does not lead them. They are in good hands with their own leaders, and Firor is eager to see what they come up with. Firor added that he has not yet decided what his next major step will be. He provides consulting services and invests in small teams and startups, but has not seriously considered founding a new development studio.
As for The Elder Scrolls Online itself, ZeniMax’s new head, Jo Burba, said in August that the game isn’t going anywhere. However, the mood at the studio doesn’t seem positive. A few weeks after the layoffs, Autumn Mitchell, a senior quality assurance tester, referred to ZeniMax as a “corpse” and said that Microsoft had taken away everything that could have made the culture and collaboration great and destroyed it.
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