Gamers like to be optimistic about acquisitions in this industry. When 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Microsoft spent billions on Bethesda it was met with jaws on the floor, but once the shock had subsided, this formed into cautious optimism. Thꦗe company behind Skyrim, Fallout, Wolfenstein, Doom, and plenty of other properties was suddenly stepping into the Bill of Gates, and all signs pointed to it being better off as a consequence. It turns out that we couldn’t have been more wrong.
This week saw Microsoft close Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and several other parts of the Bethesda machine as a means to recoup losses and reallocate resources, so it can focus on the right parts of the business. It was unusually corporate and cutthroat considering Xbox has spent the past several years building up a reputation as a gamer-friendly face that knew exactly what the industry needed. But now that plan hasn’t worked 🍌out, it couldn’t look any ﷽worse.
Tango Gameworks And Arkane Austin Are Probably Just The Start
Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, two studios that are defined by the originality they’ve continually brought to the medium, were closed down despite delivering masterful gems like Hi-Fi Rush and Prey, two games which imbue the Xbox brand with the personality it has tried to capture for years. But once it did, that apparently wasn’t good enough. Not enough money was made, so per the harrowing rules of capitalism, somebody needed to pay the price. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen such barbaric moves made in this space, and it definitely won’t be the last, but it’s hard not to feel my heart🦄 break every single time.
And so many studio closures are a direct result of acquisitions gone wrong. Take Embracer Group, who spent billions on picking up myriad studios and intellectual properties in moves that at the time felt rushed and ill-considered, and as a deal worth billions fell through, ther♔e was no money left to make up the shortfall unless it made someꦐ drastic decisions. It has laid off hundreds of people, cancelled dozens of projects, and closed entire studios like Volition and Free Radical, developers it acquired and promised to capitalise upon until its own greed took precedence.
It lost billions in a deal gone wrong, and those who did nothing but try and make great games must pay the price. Saints Row might have been a failure, but setting a single foot wrong shouldn’t doom hundreds t🎃o redundanc෴y. Yet this is the industry that these companies have created, one that puts profits above people and is doomed to collapse in on itself.
Going back a bit further, Electronic Arts became infamous for picking up major developers or franchises only to swiftly drive them into the ground. Visceral Games, previously identified as EA Redwood Shores, was responsible for all three Dead Space games and Dante’s Inferno. It was hard at work on a Star Wars game helmed by Uncharted’s Amy Hennig before it was shut down for good, largely because EA didn’t have faith in a wholly single-player game. We even have an entire arಌticle dedicated to the developers that it has shuttered over the years, with everyone from Bᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚullfrog to Pan🔯demic mentioned as casualties of poor decision making.
This week’s news has made me worry for the likes of Double Fine and Obsidian for the first time since their acquisition. What if Avowed doesn’t sell as many copies as Skyrim in three ꦏweeks, will that put the acclaimed studio on the chopping block as well? As for Double Fine, it is a developer known for taking risks and trying new things, with many of its games actively going against the expectations of mainstream audiences. If Microsoft isn’t willing to let Tango cook without lethal consequences, how can we trust it with similar creative voices?
Xbox Is Going Back To Where It All Began
Above all, however, I feel like a fool for buying into any of this to begin with. I was one of the many hopeful souls when the Bethesda acquisition took place, blown away by its scale but ultimately assured that Microsoft would treat them right. Ditto for Activis✱ion, and how exactly its vast library might be folded into the future instead of the entire company becoming a dull Call of Duty machine. Looking back, I couldn’t have been more mistaken.
Monopolies aren’t good for anyone, and the larger a corporation becomes, the higher the ✅expectations it must try and meet in order to appease shareholders. There is no ceiling for capitalism, and in failing to appease its masters, Microsoft had to bring the hammer down on hundreds of people it once promised to hold up. You could cut executive salaries to keep some of them in work or take the hit on your growing mountain of failures by selling studios and properties off to new ⛎owners, but that would be so much harder than taking the easy way out.
We’re always told there is no choice when laying people off or closing studios, but we know that behind the corporate curtain that is far from the truth. It 𓆉wouldn’t have happened if huge mistakes weren’t made in the first place, or if companies weren’t chasing unrealistic goals or pouring millions into projects like Redfall where the writing was on the wall to begin with. But what sucks the most is that this trend of constant closures and layoffs won’t change unless a fundamental shift takes place, and given we have little sway to remove those in power, I just don’t see that happening.
