Microsoft Closes Redfall Developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks, and More in Devastating Cuts at Bethesda

www.ign.com Microsoft Closes Redfall Developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush Developer Tango Gameworks, and More in Devastating Cuts at Bethesda - IGN

Microsoft has closed a number of Bethesda studios, including Redfall maker Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks, and more in devastating cuts at Bethesda, IGN can confirm.

You're viewing a single thread.

13 comments

Someone help me out here.
Why buy all these studios if you're just going to lay off all the talent?
Doesn't that kind of brain drain damage the studios that you purchased?
_Anti _{Commercial-AI} _license _(CC _BY-NC-SA _4.0)
- Because these corporations presumably think they’ll buy a talented studio, get it to make something its isn’t used to making, force a bunch of shit into it for monetisation and/or launch early in order to keep schedule. All this to keep investors/management happy. Then when the combination of the aforementioned (repeatedly) blows up in their face; usually by pissing off customers, they lose money. Finally you start layoffs and rehires if needed because you’re running into money problems.
  They couldn’t care less about the talent. It isn’t rare for a lot of the talent to bail when these studio get bought up. Especially since it feels like you’re just going to be crunched the second you get the first job post acquisition. Found this while checking this assumption, a bunch of them left early for Arkane specifically.
  I always viewed it companies like EA take a gamble. Either the investment pulls off the unlikely, convoluted shit you ask and makes you money or you take it out back and try with another studio.
  
  You would think, right? But HiFi Rush was lauded as one of the best games last year and was highly successful, even being ported to PS5 and Switch at this point, so why close them?
  
  From what I read it outsold forspoken and got around $6 million in the first month? That’s small change to a billion dollar publisher. Especially when you can close a bunch of studios(probably claim some losses for tax reasons like WB with catwoman) and reshuffle. Doesn’t need the individual studio to do poorly in this instance I’d guess. Just didn’t make the selection for “who do you want to keep going forward”.
- My best guess is that Microsoft/Bethesda hired too many people during the pandemic, because gaming had a boom then. I do not know, if it's a massive management failure or planned, that all these people would need to be laid off shortly after the pandemic-boom ends.

13 comments