Microsoft’s regular mass layoffs are causing developers to lose interest in their work.
In late July, Chris Hayes, a senior services programmer at id Software, offered a candid opinion on Xbox management during an interview. He stated that Microsoft’s repeated layoffs demonstrate a lack of understanding of art on the part of the company’s leadership. Elsewhere in the interview, Hayes broadened his criticism to encompass the broader impact of the latest wave of Xbox layoffs. Taking a broader view of the industry, Hayes (who still works for Microsoft) argues that mass layoffs and short-sighted cost-cutting lead to worse games because they deprive developers of the opportunity and motivation to perfect their craft. While large companies like Microsoft can boast about the valuable intellectual properties and studios they own, Hayes says they fail to understand that they are regularly undermining their own ability to create anything valuable with these brands and developers.
According to Hayes, the biggest publishers and companies in the gaming industry no longer understand what makes a good game. In his view, quality stems from how a studio’s developers learn to work together, and from their ability to learn from failure, as is often the case in creative work. Previously, it was assumed that Xbox’s many studios were somewhat protected from the consequences of creative risks not paying off, provided the developers had more successes than failures. However, Microsoft and the industry as a whole have lost all tolerance for anything that might be perceived as a mistake, to the detriment of games as a medium.
As we’ve seen in the case of Tango Gameworks, even successful releases like Hi-Fi Rush can’t save studios from being shut down when companies like Microsoft are in control. Hayes says that, since developers are increasingly expecting to be laid off immediately after their game’s release, those who don’t flee the industry resign themselves to the fact that their efforts will either go to waste or go unrecognised. As this investment is squeezed out of the industry, he says the damage is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
“It is our experience and our past work together that make the studio good. Yes, you could lay off half of your developers and hire more later if you need more hours to complete the tasks you want. But then you’ll end up with a mediocre game that won’t make anyone happy. This long-term thinking seems to be lacking. Failures are important, too. When id was bought by ZeniMax, and then ZeniMax by Microsoft, one of the big selling points was that failures don’t mean the end of the business. Under a bigger umbrella, you can take more risks.
If you make a mistake, it’s the last mistake you’ll make as a team. That team is finished. No one’s growing or learning, so individuals don’t have the incentive to care anymore. If they stay, they won’t feel the need to care about the future of the game they’re working on. When I first started, it was common for everyone to be fully invested in the game they were working on. As companies move in this direction, that’s becoming less and less common. Many gamers can sense that something is wrong, even if they don’t know what it is. Something’s wrong. The industry is not healthy. There are a lot of things to work through, such as macroeconomics and competition for attention. “At the core, we don’t have people at the helm who are considering the long term when making decisions to maintain a healthy industry,” said Hayes.
Serious criticism.
Source: PCGamer (https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/id-software-dev-says-mass-layoffs-like-microsofts-are-weakening-the-games-industry-because-developers-dont-have-the-incentive-to-care-anymore/)