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[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

Easy to always blame management. But management isn't the ones doing the nuts and bolts.

I dont see how management can be blamed for a game that had a 6 year gap from Halo 5, didn't make the Slipspace engine, and surely didn't do the artwork and textures for the Craig video year ago.

Someone can say it's their fault for showing Craig and releasing the game as it is. But it gets to a point you got to ship a game out unless a company wants to do a Duke Nukem and make it a 10 year project.

This is the most shameful corporate shill post I've ever seen on the internet.

WTF!?! How can someone be this clueless?!

Management determines:

• Resourcing - so if teams/activities are understaffed it's management's fault
• Budget - which defines access to tools and technologies to make development easier/smoother, as well as impacting resourcing
• the [over]use of Contractors vs hiring permanent staff - Contractors being oft temporary workers don't give a shit about writing code and building tools that benefit the team in the long-term. They're in it to get paid, often are less motivated and have less incentive to integrate within the dev teams. So an overuse of contractors is problematic
• Schedule - setting tasks within unrealistic schedules sets up the teams to fail and results exclusively in a rushed botched product.

You can have the most talented, most experienced team in the world and shit managers will fuck up the project... without fail.

It's not even just in gaming either... incompetent management is fast becoming the single biggest problem within organizations in the developed world.

 

[VGEsoterica]

what a mess that ends up with 10K people without a job / income / healthcare

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

what a mess that ends up with 10K people without a job / income / healthcare

By a trillion-dollar company that makes billions in profits.... all because a stock price (which is fucking arbitrary) was low for a bit.

There should be laws to prevent this kind of thing. If you're making over a certain amount in profits, you should not be able to just casually push tens of thousands of workers out of work, forcing them into unemployment with the associated costs borne by the state.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Outside of the hyperbole, these headcount reductions were always going to happen following the pandemic. Likely more such cuts will come.

MS added what, 50 or 60k heads to handle things as the Covid crisis started to ramp up demand in a lot of their divisions. Now that demand is subsiding and in some areas even cratering a bit (work from home sectors), a workforce correction was always inevitable.

 

[Randall365]

So Gamepass does have a price.

 

[Deanington]

Do the unions support these lay offs?

Depends on the Union contract.

 

[saintjules]

 

[CuteFaceJay]

MS only does big numbers.

And 18,000 more laid off at Amazon announced Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Sales Force and JP Morgan just announced big layoffs now too. Are we going back to the COVID days?

Remember 2008?

 

[IFireflyl]

were the fuck did i said this statement?!.

the only daft here is you buddy. why so defensive anyway?

Again, YOU responded to ME when I was engaging with a completely different person in response to other people making these claims. This was your first response to me yesterday (responding to a post I had made to a different person):

If you're too stupid to follow the context of the posts you're responding to, stay off of the forums. One more retarded-ass comment from you and you're blocked. I'm not going to deal with some teenage boy with dyslexia any longer. You have proven repeatedly that you're unable to follow the conversations that you're responding to. Learn how to read before you start responding. I'm done with you.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Sucks a shit ton of people will lose their jobs and sense of well-being, all because MS gaming division continuously wants to show us how big it’s dick is.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Sucks a shit ton of people will lose their jobs and sense of well-being, all because MS gaming division continuously wants to show us how big it’s dick is.

You seem really clued up...deffo just the gaming division.

 

[cash_longfellow]

You seem really clued up...deffo just the gaming division.

Also, let me make this easier to understand for you.
$68.7 billion / 10,000 employees = $6,870,000 per each employee they are now letting go.

 

[akaFullmetal]

10k seems like quite a lot especially with Microsoft having great revenue /profits this year. Sorry for all the devs and hope they can get a job soon.

 

[DaGwaphics]

10k seems like quite a lot especially with Microsoft having great revenue /profits this year. Sorry for all the devs and hope they can get a job soon.

It really is a small number in comparison to what they have added since the start of the pandemic. Any company/industry that grew substantially alongside the pandemic is going to move a bit more towards where they were in 2019. And that isn't even figuring in the current state of the economy/inflation and the impact that is having on consumer spending.

 

[Bojji]

Ai will kill a lot more jobs in IT in the future, I'm glad that i work with people, that's way more future proof position.

I'm not saying that's the reason MS is laying of people right now.

 

[akaFullmetal]

It really is a small number in comparison to what they have added since the start of the pandemic. Any company/industry that grew substantially alongside the pandemic is going to move a bit more towards where they were in 2019. And that isn't even figuring in the current state of the economy/inflation and the impact that is having on consumer spending.

It's still a lot of people losing their jobs, I don't care about percentages here.

 

[Dane]

Easy to always blame management. But management isn't the ones doing the nuts and bolts.

I dont see how management can be blamed for a game that had a 6 year gap from Halo 5, didn't make the Slipspace engine, and surely didn't do the artwork and textures for the Craig video year ago.

Someone can say it's their fault for showing Craig and releasing the game as it is. But it gets to a point you got to ship a game out unless a company wants to do a Duke Nukem and make it a 10 year project.

What are you talking about, management dictates the final word on anything. 343 had developed multiple versions of Infinite, its has been a massive mismanagament in the west where they have a project that out of the 6 years in development, the final vision represented only half and that's counting the loads of stuff that still got cut during it.

 

[DaGwaphics]

It's still a lot of people losing their jobs, I don't care about percentages here.

No doubt. Hopefully they land on their feet.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

This is the most shameful corporate shill post I've ever seen on the internet.

WTF!?! How can someone be this clueless?!

Management determines:

• Resourcing - so if teams/activities are understaffed it's management's fault
• Budget - which defines access to tools and technologies to make development easier/smoother, as well as impacting resourcing
• the [over]use of Contractors vs hiring permanent staff - Contractors being oft temporary workers don't give a shit about writing code and building tools that benefit the team in the long-term. They're in it to get paid, often are less motivated and have less incentive to integrate within the dev teams. So an overuse of contractors is problematic
• Schedule - setting tasks within unrealistic schedules sets up the teams to fail and results exclusively in a rushed botched product.

You can have the most talented, most experienced team in the world and shit managers will fuck up the project... without fail.

It's not even just in gaming either... incompetent management is fast becoming the single biggest problem within organizations in the developed world.

- Halo Infinite wasnt a game that had an unrealistic timeline and rock bottom budget. It was 6 years and whatever huge budget they got. I dont think top management and VPs are the ones who sat there developing their Slipspace engine. So if thats what the coders made then thats the engine they got to use. They made it

- You make it sound like contractors are all lazy shit heads. I'm pretty sure lots of of game studios use contractors. It's not like every game is bad. My company also uses contractors and they come and go. But they seem to do a decent job in finance and marketing . And most of them get their contract renewed unless they are bad or it's a seasonal job (like my finance department sometimes hires tax contractors to help with finishing up annual numbers so those roles only stick around for a few months). Most of them get renewed for years. If anything they probably do a better job than I think because they want a FT offer. If you're saying the typical tech worker contractor is a crummy worker, that's on them having a bad attitude

- Video gaming always seems to have an odd way of rushing games to market where bugs and patches are needed. But let's not pretend every game out there was shown as bad as Halo Infinite. There's tons of good games released on time, use contractors as well as dont need 6 years and gigantic budgets. The previous biggest gap in release dates was 3 years. Halo Infinite was 6 years

 

[gothmog]

What are you talking about, management dictates the final word on anything. 343 had developed multiple versions of Infinite, its has been a massive mismanagament in the west where they have a project that out of the 6 years in development, the final vision represented only half and that's counting the loads of stuff that still got cut during it.

It's totally mismanagement, especially when you have to do a "so what can we release?" type of accounting like Staten had to probably do late in development. Teams will invent their own priorities if they get no direction by leadership and product management. In the past I've seen whole departments where I can't exactly figure out what they are working on. I can see the backlog and look at the tickets worked on, but have no idea what feature is actually being worked on. Most times there is no goal because management didn't set one when you dig deeper. This is industry wide, and got even worse in the past few years because management was mostly focused on constant hiring rather than what was being worked on. It made a lot of experienced tech staff look for other jobs, and those jobs were quickly filled by relatively inexperienced newbies.

 

[Deanington]

Also, let me make this easier to understand for you.
$68.7 billion / 10,000 employees = $6,870,000 per each employee they are now letting go.

Stop, I dont think you realize the impact it would have on normal day to day society if big corp paid employees millions regualrly. Even if they paid those employees, you think the rest of the remaining work force will be ok with that?

 

[cash_longfellow]

Stop, I dont think you realize the impact it would have on normal day to day society if big corp paid employees millions regualrly. Even if they paid those employees, you think the rest of the remaining work force will be ok with that?

I’m not actually talking about paying them that much. I’m talking about how much there would be available in Lehman terms if they didn’t break the bank for that deal.

 

[Fuz]

We saw them last June.

"gameplay"

 

[mckmas8808]

Good job BluePoint. Get those devs.

 

[Deanington]

I’m not actually talking about paying them that much. I’m talking about how much there would be available in Lehman terms if they didn’t break the bank for that deal.

Gotcha, so in other words they would not of had to lay those people off. I misinterpreted what you were saying, my bad. All hypothetically speaking of course.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Also, let me make this easier to understand for you.
$68.7 billion / 10,000 employees = $6,870,000 per each employee they are now letting go.

Whats the context of $68B and 10,000 employees at $6.8M per employee?

 

[JTCx]

Nobody's defending anything fuckwit. But understanding context and the overall reasoning behind such things apparently requires a marble count higher than you're capable of.

Just stick to the kiddie pool and you'll be fine.

found the flunky.

defend it some moar.

 

[Dane]

It's totally mismanagement, especially when you have to do a "so what can we release?" type of accounting like Staten had to probably do late in development. Teams will invent their own priorities if they get no direction by leadership and product management. In the past I've seen whole departments where I can't exactly figure out what they are working on. I can see the backlog and look at the tickets worked on, but have no idea what feature is actually being worked on. Most times there is no goal because management didn't set one when you dig deeper. This is industry wide, and got even worse in the past few years because management was mostly focused on constant hiring rather than what was being worked on. It made a lot of experienced tech staff look for other jobs, and those jobs were quickly filled by relatively inexperienced newbies.

IT sector is a prime example on that, teams were being staffed so the leads who doesn't know shit gets promoted. If these companies held a mass audit they will realize that a lot of the hirings were unnecessary.

 

[Thebonehead]

This is the most shameful corporate shill post I've ever seen on the internet.

TheThreadsThatBindUs Please meet the mirror

 

[anthraticus]

It probably will. Everyone is expecting a delay for it SCI-FI games can't catch a break it seems. Feels like Cyberpunk all over again.

Colony Ship is the sci-fi RPG to be lookin out for anyway

 

[coffinbirth]

"gameplay"

Yeah...the 15 minute long "Official Gameplay Reveal" video in their not E3 show.



Not fitting with that narrative of yours yet though, eh? Or are you the type of person that requires constant reminders of things to function?

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

TheThreadsThatBindUs Please meet the mirror

Nice try, tosser.

I'm not the one arguing in favor of a trillion-dollar company laying off 10k employees.

There isn't a single rational argument you can make in favor of that that isn't tantamount to corporate shilling.

You can't find a single historical post of mine that's comparable.

 

[Stooky]

- Halo Infinite wasnt a game that had an unrealistic timeline and rock bottom budget. It was 6 years and whatever huge budget they got. I dont think top management and VPs are the ones who sat there developing their Slipspace engine. So if thats what the coders made then thats the engine they got to use. They made it

Management makes these decisions. They set timelines. They hold the budgets. They decide which engine to use.

- You make it sound like contractors are all lazy shit heads. I'm pretty sure lots of of game studios use contractors. It's not like every game is bad. My company also uses contractors and they come and go. But they seem to do a decent job in finance and marketing . And most of them get their contract renewed unless they are bad or it's a seasonal job (like my finance department sometimes hires tax contractors to help with finishing up annual numbers so those roles only stick around for a few months). Most of them get renewed for years. If anything they probably do a better job than I think because they want a FT offer. If you're saying the typical tech worker contractor is a crummy worker, that's on them having a bad attitude

Contractors are awesome

- Video gaming always seems to have an odd way of rushing games to market where bugs and patches are needed. But let's not pretend every game out there was shown as bad as Halo Infinite. There's tons of good games released on time, use contractors as well as dont need 6 years and gigantic budgets. The previous biggest gap in release dates was 3 years. Halo Infinite was 6 years

Management makes these decisions. They decide these time lines. I been on many rushed and delayed game projects. It’s always been a management decision. I worked on projects where management set a release date and we all knew that we wouldn’t make it.

343 failing is a management issue. it could be studio management, it go all the up the chain to Microsoft/Xbox management. One of the reasons I don’t like these Microsoft acquisitions because they do this all the time. Management makes bad decisions studios shut down people loss jobs

 

[Thebonehead]

Nice try, tosser.

I'm not the one arguing in favor of a trillion-dollar company laying off 10k employees.

There isn't a single rational argument you can make in favor of that that isn't tantamount to corporate shilling.

You can't find a single historical post of mine that's comparable.

Oh do fuck off - You're a well renowned rabbid fan girl around these parts

 

[cash_longfellow]

Gotcha, so in other words they would not of had to lay those people off. I misinterpreted what you were saying, my bad. All hypothetically speaking of course.

No problem at all! All my posts are hypothetical lol

 

[cash_longfellow]

Whats the context of $68B and 10,000 employees at $6.8M per employee?

The Blizzard/Activision deal cost, compared to what one of the 10,000 laid off employees allotment would be without the deal.

I’m other words, Microsoft WAY overspent, and now lower level workers are paying the price for it.

 

[Fuz]

Yeah...the 15 minute long "Official Gameplay Reveal" video in their not E3 show.



Not fitting with that narrative of yours yet though, eh? Or are you the type of person that requires constant reminders of things to function?

"Gameplay"

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

This would suggest that they might push more units like Series X without a price increase but maybe I don't understand what is meant by a $1.2B charge. Sounds more like they are paying some company for an agreement or something. Maybe they canned keystone?


Don't know really. I don't even know what the split of those layoffs are by department.

Oh they been canned Keystone. That was like back early Fall last year when word got out about it I think. So I doubt the $1.2 billion is that.

I assumed the $1.2 billion is in reference to the amount of salary they would save letting off 10K people. It's an average of $120K per person but, the layoffs are global and certain countries have positions with pay as low as $8K a year. MS already said there are more layoffs coming, so I guess the $1.2 charge will be accounting for that.

When you think about it, that's not even a whole ton in savings they're getting; I'm guessing they spend some $15 billion a year in salaries across all their employees, maybe that also covers contractors but if not throw maybe another half-billion on top of that. Basically they're spending ~ 25% of their net annual profits on employee salaries alone.

 

[kiphalfton]

I think recession is starting to be a real threat

Get ready to witness 2008 again

Let's hope not.

Experts keep saying we're not in a recession... but what does that matter when straddling the line.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The Blizzard/Activision deal cost, compared to what one of the 10,000 laid off employees allotment would be without the deal.

I’m other words, Microsoft WAY overspent, and now lower level workers are paying the price for it.

Kind of a weird way to evaluate things as nobody does that kind of calculation.

MS right now is worth 1.74 trillion dollars. They got 220,000 employees before the firing of 10,000.

1.74T / 220,000 people = $7.9M per employee.

So the value of their existing MS workers costs more than Activision people using your calculation. So an Activision employee is $1M cheaper.

 

[Deanington]

The Blizzard/Activision deal cost, compared to what one of the 10,000 laid off employees allotment would be without the deal.

I’m other words, Microsoft WAY overspent, and now lower level workers are paying the price for it.

Think about this way. Outside of the potential Activision deal, what if MS was going to lay people off regardless? Sometimes there's just unnecessary bloat/non productive employees that hung on far longer than expected? There are multiple divisions outside gaming in this regard.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Think about this way. Outside of the potential Activision deal, what if MS was going to lay people off regardless? Sometimes there's just unnecessary bloat/non productive employees that hung on far longer than expected? There are multiple divisions outside gaming in this regard.

Tech companies roller coaster their way to big hiring sprees and also big firings. It's so wild compared to other industries, but if thats the nature of the beast where tech companies have to roll the dice and ramp up asap to get a leg up on the competition than what you get is also big firings if things go south. But you still got a giant net gain in employees.

On the other hand your typical utility company probably hasnt budged in hiring or firing one bit. When was the last time anyone heard their local water company has gone up 5,000 or 50,000 employees the past 10 years. Never. You also never hear about them dumping 10,000 either.

All the big tech companies which started in the 90s or dot com craze went from hardly any employees to probably all 100,000+. Google has 150,000. Meta about 40,000. And these kinds of numbers dont even include contract workers which are not counted as official company employee counts. So the job growth is humongous the past 20 years. No other kind of industry has such big ramp ups the past few decades. If anything, some of them have downsized over the decades as automation has reduced the need for paper pushers.

 

[LordOfChaos]

With the impact to their gaming staff, Halo Infinite's campaign team reportedly being extremely gutted, aren't they kind of screwed if the Activision deal doesn't actually close? Then they just decimated a lot of their gaming studios without new ones and new staff coming in.

If Activision doesn't close things look kinda bad for Xbox...

 

[NickFire]

With the impact to their gaming staff, Halo Infinite's campaign team reportedly being extremely gutted, aren't they kind of screwed if the Activision deal doesn't actually close? Then they just decimated a lot of their gaming studios without new ones and new staff coming in.

If Activision doesn't close things look kinda bad for Xbox...

I doubt the layoffs will seriously impact their previously (pre-Activision) intended game output. Those projects were never cancelled due to the Activision deal as far as I know. Plus 343 was probably in their cross hairs since summer 2020 when the preview video was mocked anyway. I also doubt they selected layoff candidates based on an assumption of closing. They know there are hurdles to clear, and they also know they can fire anyone made redundant by the deal anytime they want post closing.

 

[Spukc]

wow 10k is a lot

"The American technology company Microsoft employs approximately 221,000 people in full-time positions worldwide."
still a lot

Numbers
Are fun

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

With the impact to their gaming staff, Halo Infinite's campaign team reportedly being extremely gutted, aren't they kind of screwed if the Activision deal doesn't actually close? Then they just decimated a lot of their gaming studios without new ones and new staff coming in.

If Activision doesn't close things look kinda bad for Xbox...

this is why they will fight until the end. (they don't have another option).

 

[LordOfChaos]

I doubt the layoffs will seriously impact their previously (pre-Activision) intended game output. Those projects were never cancelled due to the Activision deal as far as I know. Plus 343 was probably in their cross hairs since summer 2020 when the preview video was mocked anyway. I also doubt they selected layoff candidates based on an assumption of closing. They know there are hurdles to clear, and they also know they can fire anyone made redundant by the deal anytime they want post closing.

Well, it's probably still not a good look if the deal closing will lead to another several thousands of redundant positions and regulators see this

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Numbers
Are fun

hey honey....i just got laid off...but i am just a number, in fact; only part of 5% of the workforce.

what's for dinner?.

 

[Nikodemos]

Probably just making room for ABK.

I honestly hope that eventually fails. I hate Kotick with burning passion, but the deal is a shitshow for the industry at large.

 

[Iced Arcade]

shitty. cuts to pad the first quarter results all around the world and still coming.