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More layoff pain at Microsoft: Github, Xbox, Mixed Reality, and others hit hard

ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
It would depend on how many workers they brought in for the pandemic. I think MS hired about 70k during that period.

On here people console war with this, but in reality the gaming division has only represented a very small percentage of these layoffs, because that division did not suffer from as much pandemic bloat as other areas of the company. The gaming specific layoffs seem to be more about reducing redundancies between Xbox Game Studios and Zenimax (besides the house cleaning at 343), which you knew would happen eventually. At the end of the day, MS probably doesn't need two completely distinct publishing arms.
and what publisher arm has been doing a pathetic job at.....publishing games?.... Yep, the entire Xbox publishing is the one that should be massively layoff.

laying off zenimax "redundancies" is going to "rub the wrong way" to zenimax staff; is going to create friction, cultural clash, power vacuums, and turmoil.

we are witnessing the beginnings of some Game Of Thrones shit inside xbox.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
I will give these companies a break on the pandemic since that did create a situation where industries suddenly experienced unimaginable spikes in demand while also suffering from a sudden loss in efficiency due to work-from-home. But I hear what you are saying and would feel the same if someone doubled their staff because they had one good quarter and then fired them the next. :messenger_grinning:

@ ChorizoPicozo ChorizoPicozo I doubt that tbh. Major mergers always result in redundancies, ABK would be the same in some areas. Typically these "synergies" get worked out a lot faster than MS did here with Zenimax. Sucks for the people laid off sure, but it's most often what happens if both companies operated within the same field. MS's primary reason purchasing Zenimax would have been the game development studios and the individuals working there. There wasn't anything fundamentally broken with MS's publishing capabilities so that wasn't exactly a real need.
 
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Not necessarily. PlayStation also benefited from the pandemic, and they are not laying off people.

In fact, PlayStation is hiring and has hired many people that Xbox just laid off.
Sony literally gutted their Japan studios and laid off some of the marketing team last year.
 
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Daneel Elijah

Gold Member
and what publisher arm has been doing a pathetic job at.....publishing games?.... Yep, the entire Xbox publishing is the one that should be massively layoff.

laying off zenimax "redundancies" is going to "rub the wrong way" to zenimax staff; is going to create friction, cultural clash, power vacuums, and turmoil.

we are witnessing the beginnings of some Game Of Thrones shit inside xbox.
When new people enter a company nothing is worse than firing the people that are already here. At worse the new ones will be useless but the ones being here first have way more opportunities to hurt the company. I agree that Zenimax had done a good job with its publishing arm and they should stay. But doing so would be crazy and worse for company morale.
I will give these companies a break on the pandemic since that did create a situation where industries suddenly experienced unimaginable spikes in demand while also suffering from a sudden loss in efficiency due to work-from-home. But I hear what you are saying and would feel the same if someone doubled their staff because they had one good quarter and then fired them the next. :messenger_grinning:
I agree with that too. It's not easy to be a CEO no matter the times, but really hard in times like those. That is why people like Iwata, who could make the difficult decisions that he made for Nintendo well being are needed.
 
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A lot of tech companies overhired during covid and now their feeling the pinch of a rough economy and have to cut the fat. It makes me wonder how many of these jobs were needed.

I mean if you read the list of people who were laid off at Google and what their job titles were it makes you wonder what their actually purpose was. Like what does a Assistant to a Associate Principal of Global Engagement actually do?
 
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Yes it's sad what's happening in tech right now. Was Ina conversation that with a guy that made 250,000 a year lost his job, he was asking advice.

He didn't care about his brand new car getting taken by the bank, or being able to buy extra. He was worried about his house he had built in California.

His wife didn't work and she doesn't know it's that bad. Just wants to make his house payment. Said there are no jobs in tech right now and it's ultra competitive.

He asked if he took a min wage job if that would hold off the bank and be enough to keep his house. I'd say he prolly ran the numbers and realized it wouldnt, and this is before food.

Yea you hear about these, and he should have saved and invested but he didn't. Now he's probably losing his house. It's sad really and there are 50,000 out there feeling this way.

I've been through a rough patch but I own my home outright. It's a scary feeling to have a child to feed and not knowing how you were gonns pay for that food.
They don't have unemployment benefits in the US? In the Netherlands you get at minimum 3 months to look for a job.
 
  1. Restructured around Team Asobi (which was one of the teams in Japan Studios), not gutted.
  2. That happened ~2 years ago.
  3. Different reasons as Japan Studios wasn't producing the results they wanted, so they changed their management and put devs under Nicolas Doucet.

Japan Studio has been officially removed from Sony’s list of studios.
Sony reorganised Japan Studio into “a new organisation” on April 1, and the vast majority of its development staff was let go, VGC exclusively reported in February.

Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com...n officially,Games, Naughty Dog and Guerrilla.

Restructure my ass. That is why the only game that was released from the studio was a free game demo lol. You don't think Sony isn't going to do layoffs either in the near future? This is a business not a charity.
 
They don't have unemployment benefits in the US? In the Netherlands you get at minimum 3 months to look for a job.
It's been a while since I was laid off, but you can get around 6 months of unemployment benefits. It pays just enough for a single person to get by. If you have a family? Yeah you are screwed.
 

Unknown?

Member
This is a very poor conclusion. And a very poorly informed one at that. value of any company is determined by its share price multiplied by the number of shares available at any time.

In Feb.2021, it was worth around $80B.

In Nov. 2021,it was worth $47B.

In Jan 17.2022... one d before Microsoft announced it was buying Activision, it had a market valuation of $63B.

So I don't ready know what you are saying. If the argument is that MS should never have tried to buy them, that's a different matter, but MS bid at market value.

if you think that was some spur-of-the-moment decision based on consumer spending, then you have no idea how companies operate. The decision to buy Activision probably started months to a year before it was announced or a bid was made. And allotments for that kinda spending were made at the very least at the start of that fiscal year, which for MS would have been around 9 months before the announcement.

And to dispute what you are saying evermore, you gotta understand that the real focus and clear direction of Xbox is not about hardware anymore, but about subscriptions and gamepass. MS is more interested in having 100M subs to gamepass than 80M of them having an Xbox console. They would be just as happy if 80M of those subs were on PC and 20M were on Xbox. And to a company shifting its focus to a sub-service, $69B is chicken change for them in the grand scheme of things.

One has nothing to do with the other. Companies stealth-drop stuff the time. Its a form of marketing called user-generated marketing (its actually a thing). And for it to be most effective, you kinda are best off stealth-dropping it.


How much a company has in its war chest has absolutely nothing to do with hires or fires.

Because they have a war chest doesn't mean they would hold onto assets that they consider are now redundant. If they did that, that's just bad business.
There's a difference between price and value. It's market price was what the shares were worth but that is not value. There's such a thing as being over valued.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/playstation-has-officially-removed-japan-studio-from-its-list-of-studios/#:~:text=Japan Studio has been officially,Games, Naughty Dog and Guerrilla.

Restructure my ass. That is why the only game that was released from the studio was a free game demo lol. You don't think Sony isn't going to do layoffs either in the near future? This is a business not a charity.
As long as they remain profitable and continue to grow, why would they lay off people? Just to have a kick? lol
 
As long as they remain profitable and continue to grow, why would they lay off people? Just to have a kick? lol
A lot of tech companies that did layoffs were profitable. The fact is these companies are good at predicting the future economic forecast and can see that there is going to be a recession soon. They are laying off people to prepare for it. Not to mention companies do layoffs if they feel that some workers are not being productive or their positions are redundant and already filled.

Nothing personal, but it is business.
 
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flying_sq

Member
It's a lot of big companies doing this. My company publicly announced 5,000 layoffs. Then it laid off another 6,000 and the NA president recently stepped down.
 

Dane

Member
A lot of tech companies that did layoffs were profitable. The fact is these companies are good at predicting the future forecast and can see that there is going to be a recession soon. They are laying off people to prepare for it. Not to mention companies do layoffs if they feel that some workers are not being productive or their positions are redundant and already filled.

Nothing personal, but it is business.
Considering what i've been told about TI nowadays, if they did a massive audit they would lay off even more people.
 
Clicked the link wondering what GitHub was, then ended up on an article about the giraffe woman 😁

3E52ED6D00000578-4319364-image-m-4_1489657597683.jpg


faint-fainting.gif
 
This is a very poor conclusion. And a very poorly informed one at that. value of any company is determined by its share price multiplied by the number of shares available at any time.

In Feb.2021, it was worth around $80B.

In Nov. 2021,it was worth $47B.

In Jan 17.2022... one d before Microsoft announced it was buying Activision, it had a market valuation of $63B.

So I don't ready know what you are saying. If the argument is that MS should never have tried to buy them, that's a different matter, but MS bid at market value.

if you think that was some spur-of-the-moment decision based on consumer spending, then you have no idea how companies operate. The decision to buy Activision probably started months to a year before it was announced or a bid was made. And allotments for that kinda spending were made at the very least at the start of that fiscal year, which for MS would have been around 9 months before the announcement.

And to dispute what you are saying evermore, you gotta understand that the real focus and clear direction of Xbox is not about hardware anymore, but about subscriptions and gamepass. MS is more interested in having 100M subs to gamepass than 80M of them having an Xbox console. They would be just as happy if 80M of those subs were on PC and 20M were on Xbox. And to a company shifting its focus to a sub-service, $69B is chicken change for them in the grand scheme of things.

One has nothing to do with the other. Companies stealth-drop stuff the time. Its a form of marketing called user-generated marketing (its actually a thing). And for it to be most effective, you kinda are best off stealth-dropping it.


How much a company has in its war chest has absolutely nothing to do with hires or fires.

Because they have a war chest doesn't mean they would hold onto assets that they consider are now redundant. If they did that, that's just bad business.
It was clearly a spur-of-the-moment decision made by people under pressure in a content war. With hindsight it is crystal clear the deal is a bad deal.. and share value is a fluctuating value that is not how much a company is really worth and is totally based on speculative value. 70bn for a company with all Activision's issues was never an intelligent bid. It was a power move during a global pandemic. Companies make huge mistakes all the time. You are making the mistake of believing these huge companies dont have huge idiots working for them. You listed in your own post that the value a year earlier was 20BN lower.. so how can it not be a bad decision without much planning?
 
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Mr.Phoenix

Member
It was clearly a spur-of-the-moment decision made by people under pressure in a content war. With hindsight it is crystal clear the deal is a bad deal.. and share value is a fluctuating value that is not how much a company is really worth and is totally based on speculative value. 70bn for a company with all Activision's issues was never an intelligent bid. It was a power move during a global pandemic. Companies make huge mistakes all the time. You are making the mistake of believing these huge companies dont have huge idiots working for them. You listed in your own post that the value a year earlier was 20BN lower.. so how can it not be a bad decision without much planning?
My point is, if we are looking at the value of a company, you can only really do so by looking at the market. The simple reason is that its market value is real tangible value. Not hypothetical what it may be worth value.

eg. If you buy shares in a company right now at $20/share. And then by next month, it goes up to $40/share. It doesn't matter what anyone on here says, if you sell your shares, you have made $20 of real-world profit. That is real value. Not a hypothetical `oh I don't think this company is worth this or that for this or that reason`.

And you are not buying a company like Activision because it has issues or not, that kinda thinking has nothing to do with business. You are buying them for their IPs and talent.

And yes, it was a power move, but that has nothing to do with pandemics. It's something MS was always going to do, as long as they intend to grow gamepass. It's something companies do. You acquire or spend in ways to grow as quickly as possible or make up for areas you may be lacking. There was nothing wrong with them making a power move, and there is nothing idiotic about the actual move. What is idiotic is that MS allowed themselves to be in a position where such a move was their best play. But make no mistake,if it works, and every other move like it they would do works.... in 5 years some would herald them as being one of the smartest and most ruthless companies ever.

They just didn't think it would be met with such resistance, also another idiotic thing. They should have done it in bits. No one would have been able to do shit if they had just paid for the COD license. Even if it means they pay $1.5B/year for it. But they were not ready to wait for the deal activision has with sony to expire, so this was the only way to do it right now.
 
My point is, if we are looking at the value of a company, you can only really do so by looking at the market. The simple reason is that its market value is real tangible value. Not hypothetical what it may be worth value.

eg. If you buy shares in a company right now at $20/share. And then by next month, it goes up to $40/share. It doesn't matter what anyone on here says, if you sell your shares, you have made $20 of real-world profit. That is real value. Not a hypothetical `oh I don't think this company is worth this or that for this or that reason`.

And you are not buying a company like Activision because it has issues or not, that kinda thinking has nothing to do with business. You are buying them for their IPs and talent.

And yes, it was a power move, but that has nothing to do with pandemics. It's something MS was always going to do, as long as they intend to grow gamepass. It's something companies do. You acquire or spend in ways to grow as quickly as possible or make up for areas you may be lacking. There was nothing wrong with them making a power move, and there is nothing idiotic about the actual move. What is idiotic is that MS allowed themselves to be in a position where such a move was their best play. But make no mistake,if it works, and every other move like it they would do works.... in 5 years some would herald them as being one of the smartest and most ruthless companies ever.

They just didn't think it would be met with such resistance, also another idiotic thing. They should have done it in bits. No one would have been able to do shit if they had just paid for the COD license. Even if it means they pay $1.5B/year for it. But they were not ready to wait for the deal activision has with sony to expire, so this was the only way to do it right now.
In principle, I agree with everything you are putting forward, however, we cant ignore the spending spree both Sony and MS were on at the time.
Perhaps the idea of a bidding war with Sony over CoD just didn't seem worth it for a product they would have no direct ownership of?
Sony definitely panic bought Bungee.
The only good deal I see from this period is the Bethesda/ Zenimax deal. The talent, the IP and the huge variation of modern and varied content for 10BN seems like a steal at this point.
The Activision deal just never looked good to me. Getting a Blizzard would have been amazing in 2009, but now.. I have no idea what Blizzard even is at this point. And Activision itself, apart from CoD, has only had remakes and a publishing contract for Sekiro in the last 5 years. It just does not seem like a well thought out deal. Even as a fan of some of the IPs Activision holds, there seems to be little there that could possibly make money.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
This is the reality of mergers. Once everything is under the same corporate umbrella then everyone gets judged based on the same corporate expectations. So if the bean-counters decide that the numbers for the corp as a whole aren't good enough for the financial year, then cuts get applied broadly at the same time in order to improve efficiency.

Basically the cost of becoming part of something bigger is that you become another piece on the corporate chessboard.
 

Mr.Phoenix

Member
In principle, I agree with everything you are putting forward, however, we cant ignore the spending spree both Sony and MS were on at the time.
Perhaps the idea of a bidding war with Sony over CoD just didn't seem worth it for a product they would have no direct ownership of?
Sony definitely panic bought Bungee.
The only good deal I see from this period is the Bethesda/ Zenimax deal. The talent, the IP and the huge variation of modern and varied content for 10BN seems like a steal at this point.
The Activision deal just never looked good to me. Getting a Blizzard would have been amazing in 2009, but now.. I have no idea what Blizzard even is at this point. And Activision itself, apart from CoD, has only had remakes and a publishing contract for Sekiro in the last 5 years. It just does not seem like a well thought out deal. Even as a fan of some of the IPs Activision holds, there seems to be little there that could possibly make money.
I take issue with the whole panic-buying thing. Because I see it more as forced moves or necessitated actions. I will elaborate.

Yes, Sonys bungie purchase can be seen as a panicked buy, but when your rival is snapping up publishers left and right and you know they will do more, you would have to be stupid to not do something too.

Regardless of whatever MS says, sony is the single biggest obstacle they have as far as gaming goes. And the performance of any PlayStation platform is literally directly related to the performance of Xbox. Consolidation is the only play MS really has. Not only does it ensure they can keep stuff out of PlayStation hands, but it also at least ensures that as much as possible is on gamepass. Simple, the more you have on gamepass, the less you need PlayStation. So its not even about whats there that can make money, its about what's there that can grow their sub base to gamepass. Can you imagine what day 1 COD on gamepass will do? And if there is one thing anyone knows about gamers, its that the game on whatever their frieds are on.

MS cannot wait for that sony deal with Activision to be over, that means waiting for 2026. By then, there could be 100M PS5s sold to their 40M Xboxes. Thats game over.

Here is the best way to think of the deals MS is making and its apparent value. It's not even about what they are getting, it's more about what they are taking away from PlayStation.

What price would you put on being able to get rid of your biggest rival and establish a strange hold on the gaming industry for the foreseeable future? $10B? $69B? $200B? $300B?

See? $69B doesn't sound like much now when you look at it that way does it?
 
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