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Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

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Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#111

Post by pizza234 »

eightysixfour wrote: post #13

There's no real evidence in here that the IDTech team or the "coders" were specifically let go. I'm not saying it didn't happen but the article is just raging at the idea of it happening without presenting any evidence of it. I can't help but think the industry will be better off in a few years after this Xbox "restructure." That's a lot of knowledge and talent that's no longer stuck in 14 layers of middle management…

> There's no real evidence in here that the IDTech team or the "coders" were specifically let go

Scott Miller said it himself:

> Big day today at Id Software [...] today, Microsoft/XBOX decided half the team was deemed USELESS and needed to be let go [...] With literally the best of the best coders in the industry.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#112

Post by thewebguyd »

SteveNuts wrote: post #48
ndiddy wrote: post #19

I think we'll see stuff like this continue to happen over time. As a game company, having your own engine means that you have to be able to cultivate internal expertise in your tooling. Your employees will know this and could do bad things like ask for more money because they know that replacing them would significantly hurt productivity. Meanwhile, laying off your whole engine team and switching to UE5 means that yo…

I firmly believe if software engineering unionization ever starts to take hold, it'll begin with game developers. There's a lot of money in gaming but the workers are treated like shit, as you pointed out.

Its already started, within Blizzard. Communications Workers of America Union across the WoW and Overwatch teams.

Also, no union employees at Blizzard were impact by Microsoft's Xbox layoffs/restructuring.

Goes to show, Unions are important and work. The best time to unionize was several years ago. The next best time is now.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#113

Post by 0xWTF »

SteveNuts wrote: post #48
ndiddy wrote: post #19

I think we'll see stuff like this continue to happen over time. As a game company, having your own engine means that you have to be able to cultivate internal expertise in your tooling. Your employees will know this and could do bad things like ask for more money because they know that replacing them would significantly hurt productivity. Meanwhile, laying off your whole engine team and switching to UE5 means that yo…

I firmly believe if software engineering unionization ever starts to take hold, it'll begin with game developers. There's a lot of money in gaming but the workers are treated like shit, as you pointed out.

> if software engineering unionization ever starts to take hold

So, you know, do that.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#114

Post by tayo42 »

eightysixfour wrote: post #56
lenerdenator wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growth over a long period of time involves two things: consistency in vision, and willingness to take risks. We do not have a market designed to reward these things, at least not for the likes of Microsoft. For them, it's far easier to simply cut people while collecting on their previous labor. Once the product of that previous labor is no longer as valuable, it can then simply be spun off or shut down permanently.

I actually think this is the wrong diagnosis of this situation. The studios in Microsoft gaming appear to have been given a lot of room to take risks under previous leadership, build passion projects, etc. while letting big franchises sit on the side. Those things ended up being anywhere from abject failures to small successes - where some players and critics loved them - but most don't seem to be commercial successe…

I'm confused, do people want endless sequels or not?

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#115

Post by bix6 »

georgeecollins wrote: post #49
eightysixfour wrote: post #13

There's no real evidence in here that the IDTech team or the "coders" were specifically let go. I'm not saying it didn't happen but the article is just raging at the idea of it happening without presenting any evidence of it. I can't help but think the industry will be better off in a few years after this Xbox "restructure." That's a lot of knowledge and talent that's no longer stuck in 14 layers of middle management…

Not the OP, but Scott Miller said "most if not all" coders at ID were laid off. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-layoffs-july-2026 I hope the industry will be in a better place in a few years. There is this recurring theme of big companies rolling up little developers and destroying their development culture.

> There is this recurring theme of big companies rolling up little developers and destroying their development culture

Why are the little devs selling to the big companies in the first place then? If you’re crushing it as an Indie studio why wouldn’t you stay that way knowing how big tech acts?

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#116

Post by __patchbit__ »

reactordev wrote: post #21
Grombobulous wrote: post #16

It’s painful to watch this because the recipe for success at Microsoft is so obvious. They’ve just been fumbling the ball for so many years that it’s catching up to them. And the thing is they’re not unprofitable. Gutting their studios and technology development isn’t going to help growth, it’s going to contract the business.

Microsoft’s Modus Operandi.

Human labor plus AI tokens must double input capital on loop track output.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#117

Post by Lerc »

ndiddy wrote: post #19

I think we'll see stuff like this continue to happen over time. As a game company, having your own engine means that you have to be able to cultivate internal expertise in your tooling. Your employees will know this and could do bad things like ask for more money because they know that replacing them would significantly hurt productivity. Meanwhile, laying off your whole engine team and switching to UE5 means that yo…

This kind of argument has been made since the days of renderware.

I have seen a number of projects go from

'We're building our own engine'

To

'we should have just gone with $engine_of_the_day'

To

'We were so lucky we chose to make our own engine'

If you want to make a game like fortnight, the Unreal is your pick. If you want to try something that hasn't been done before you could do worse than rolling your own engine.

Especially if you are looking for where the fun is, the idiosyncrasies of your own engine gives you a world with it's own flavour if you incorporate that flavour into your design process you could create a feedback loop that turns into something special.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#118

Post by sleepybrett »

SteveNuts wrote: post #48
ndiddy wrote: post #19

I think we'll see stuff like this continue to happen over time. As a game company, having your own engine means that you have to be able to cultivate internal expertise in your tooling. Your employees will know this and could do bad things like ask for more money because they know that replacing them would significantly hurt productivity. Meanwhile, laying off your whole engine team and switching to UE5 means that yo…

I firmly believe if software engineering unionization ever starts to take hold, it'll begin with game developers. There's a lot of money in gaming but the workers are treated like shit, as you pointed out.

they've been treated like shit for 30+ years (at least in america). I spent a few years early in my career in gaming and once I left I never looked back, it's a horror show. Crunch, constant 'there are 1000 people who want your job' pressure from management whenever you complain about crunch, low pay (even if you were working 40hours a week), terrible benefits (vacation, get real), ship a successful game probably get laid off anyways, etc etc.

Working in games I thought working for a bit 'straight' corporation would be literal hell, I was very very wrong.

Just to say, if they haven't organized by now I'm not sure what it would actually take.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#119

Post by eightysixfour »

lenerdenator wrote: post #80
eightysixfour wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think this is the wrong diagnosis of this situation. The studios in Microsoft gaming appear to have been given a lot of room to take risks under previous leadership, build passion projects, etc. while letting big franchises sit on the side. Those things ended up being anywhere from abject failures to small successes - where some players and critics loved them - but most don't seem to be commercial successe…

The thing is, every time you take a swing on one of those big IPs, you take a risk. Sure, you can do well: Skyrim was a big step up from Oblivion, for example. But you can also screw things up (see: Halo), or fall into the trap that Valve has fallen into with Half-Life 3 where the expectations of the public can never be truly met. I think what they want to do is make the next WoW. Low-risk, customer lock-in, people i…

> The thing is, every time you take a swing on one of those big IPs, you take a risk.

I think the entire content production industry, no matter the medium, is aware of the risk/reward of rerunning existing IP vs creating new IP. There's a reason we get retreads of retreads elsewhere, existing IP is lower risk, higher reward, pretty much always.

Halo is a good example - they fumbled with Infinite. It just wasn't very good. Yet the remake of Halo: Combat Evolved is getting a ton of attention from the fanbase and broader gaming community. If the next Halo is good, that fanbase will come back around.

> I think what they want to do is make the next WoW. Low-risk, customer lock-in, people identifying themselves with their consumption of the IP to an almost ludicrous degree. You see that already in some ways with Fallout 76.

This is what they now want from Mojang and Minecraft. Asha even called it out in her letter.

Re: Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software

#120

Post by CuriouslyC »

Game devs have been heavily unionizing lately, including Blizzard and WotC. I wonder how long long it takes before we have a union game dev studio basically mutiny and completely disregard the instructions of the corporate suits, and force the choice of either shuttering the studio completely or caving to the workers.
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