r/videogames • u/Low_Boot_1426 • Jul 09 '26
News / Trailers / Articles This is just so damn sad :(
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u/juicy_696 Jul 09 '26
id Software should’ve stayed independent.
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u/jamiecarl09 Jul 09 '26
Every single studio who was bought by Microsoft or Sony should have said no. But executives prioritize money above all else.
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u/EquivalentPension216 Jul 09 '26
What is the benefit in the near term? Does the studio actually get financial backing? Or is it like a bonus for upper mgmt and everyone else gets screwed over on due time?
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u/jamiecarl09 Jul 09 '26
The owners (whoever that might be) get a huge payday. There are usually other selling points depending on the deal, but it always comes down to the owners wanting a bunch of money.
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u/Medium_Wind_7128 Jul 09 '26
That's the key. Its not management but whoever the majority shareholders or investors are who decide to sell and get all the profits despite usually just being the money behind the developers and having little to do with the day to day business. People like Asha are just fall people to look like the bad guys while the greedy 1 percenters dump Xbox after having wrung it dry for money so they can go invest in the next thing, rinse and repeat.
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u/kittentarentino Jul 09 '26
I dont think it works like that.
They covered it in the Double Fine doc. Xbox basically went around and said “we’re interested in funding companies that can give us big hits and awards.” They were giving out blank checks.
Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but if you were offered both an insane payday and somebody who was going to pay the bills until you release a banger, it’s hard to say no. That was xbox’s whole strategy, “make it hard to say no”.
It was a ballsy play that 100% didn’t pay off. Now a new CEO is here, and doing the classic CEO thing of getting rid of the last CEOs things to make the numbers look good
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u/Mobile_Ask2480 Jul 09 '26
I don't understand
If they get bought and they take the money can't they dissolve and quit and start a new studio?
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u/ShanFlinch Jul 10 '26
AAA companines make sure that doesnt happen. Various kind of contracts make it impossible. What you are saying will just cause the person (not studio but the individual person) to fight some very expensive lawsuits which they will lose.
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u/Lluck002 Jul 09 '26
This is happening in every industry. The C-Suite is eradicating all human talent and creativity from everything in pursuit of profit. I don’t think they realize that you have to actually make good stuff to make profit; you can’t just keep focusing on cost-cutting and “efficiency.” They’re bringing in people with generic business degrees to destroy what creatives built.
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u/TemperedTorture Jul 09 '26
They're realizing you don't have to make anything to make money anymore. Megawealth is being generated through speculation markets, future earnings (that don't need to materialize), tax breaks and government handouts.
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u/AJfriedRICE Jul 09 '26
It really feels like somebody (orange man maybe) hit a switch and suddenly all humanity is gone from any form of business. We’re all being fucked over left and right.
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u/Lluck002 Jul 09 '26
It’s what happens when you gut regulations and are used as a puppet by big business bribing you to allow them to screw over society. The Dump Regime is purposefully collapsing society from every angle all at once. Silicon Valley wants its deranged Network State dystopian fantasy.
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u/IcyCow5880 Jul 09 '26
Oh well. We're seeing the rise of indie games. I hardly beat games... That game "Cairn" came out and I got hooked. Played till the very end and it made me cry and I haven't cried in years.
Just sayin; Terrible for the employees of the big corps but as gamers we'll be fine.
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u/j_wizlo Jul 10 '26
That game rocks. I beat games occasionally but not often. Never a doubt I was going to see that one all the way through.
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u/BAN3AI Jul 09 '26
They gonna find that out in due time. There have been games that were dead before they even released in the past few years, if quality of products will continue to drop, so will the profits.
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u/Massive_Funny_9312 Jul 09 '26
Make bad games, get laid off. Make decent games, also get laid off. Make great games (like ID), guess what? ALSO GET LAID OFF.
How are we in one of the best years for video games yet simultaneously in one of the worst years for the video game industry???
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u/Low_Boot_1426 Jul 09 '26
Anyone who says this industry, at least in the console space, isn’t actively progressing towards some kind of crash is kidding themselves. It may not be as potentially cataclysmic as the early 80’s but this industry is heading towards a massive paradigm shift within the next decade.
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u/Admirable-Design-151 Jul 09 '26
The video game industry is not heading towards a crash, there were a lot of factors around the 83 crash, where here, there's one major thing a lot of people ignore, video games still sell well, video games are too intrenched in media now to every crash again, even with terrible decisions like Sony's physical game cut off 100% guarantee PlayStation 6 will sell well, because frankly most of the world don't give a fuck, Reddit is such a small minority of the world, even if consoles start getting to super stupid prices gaming is the biggest form of media in the world people will keep buying and keep consuming.
And on top of that a large chunk of what caused the 83 crash was a drop in quality, where, I'm sorry but if you genuinely think video games quality has dropped over time, you need a lobotomy, there are bad video games, but there always will be and for every 500th CoD game there's an Expedition 33 which sells amazing, wins awards, is beloved.
The more accurate statement to be said is the video game industry is in a very transitional period, not a crash.
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u/Lanky-Visit2846 Jul 09 '26
At this point, we've all been desensitized and trained to be ok with having zero say/control/choice in purchasing power for entertainment. We are living in a new age of robber barons controlling nearly every facet of society, including entertainment.
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u/and-its-true Jul 09 '26
You say that but like, Spotify is an insane value compared to the days of having to purchase individual CDs. Same for Netflix vs cable. You can have every streaming service for less than the price of cable, or you can choose a-la-carte which ones to subscribe to.
Seems like things have swung in the consumers’ favor to me.
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u/Lanky-Visit2846 Jul 09 '26
And they continue to raise the prices now that you have no choice. Streaming services is no different than when the Hollywood studios used to own their own theaters and you could only see their movies at their theaters. Congress passed a law making that practice illegal. Yet now it's ok for companies to own digital theaters that can force you to use their service to watch their content. I see no difference.
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u/DrunkPimp Jul 10 '26
Imagine the digital rights we could have with good legislation if our congress had more than a handful of young people on it.
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u/Brantraxx Jul 09 '26
No. There’s a point soon where the average console will be too expensive for the parent to consider for Xmas or Birthday. People are being priced out
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u/currentmadman Jul 09 '26
I think you may have a slight misunderstanding as to what would most likely cause a modern day crash. Yes games are still selling incredibly well but that’s not the economy works.
Think of all the big investment firms and other business entities involved and how stock prices work. It’s like with ai right now, it doesn’t matter how valuable the tech actually is, just how valuable it is perceived to be. Now let’s imagine that venture capital pulls away from the game industry in a way that not only causes stock prices falls but makes other investors also back off. If that can become a self sustaining feedback loop, eventually everything will shit the bed and we’ll have a crash.
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u/Reasonable_Cut_2709 Jul 09 '26
the 80s one isn't cataclysmic dude. It only mostly affected the US, europe videogame scene and industry were thriving, and so was japan.
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u/Low_Boot_1426 Jul 09 '26
That’s why I said “potentially cataclysmic,” at least for Americans, which were and still are one of the largest markets for gaming. It ended up pulling together, and I’m hoping it’s the same going into the next generation.
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u/Mistform05 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Funny thing is. Corporations having unrealistic expectations were also cause of the first one as well.
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u/Boxinggandhi Jul 09 '26
Jokes on them, I still have like a 50 game backlog. I’m probably good for gaming for the rest of my life lol. That’s not even counting classic games I’ve wanted to play.
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u/wolfannoy Jul 09 '26
Things are getting so bad. I think the crash needs to happen at this point. I know I don't like the idea of people losing their jobs, but some of these publishers and bigger companies are making so much mistakes. You kind of want to burn it down. Hoping something will be built upon the ashes.
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u/JedJinto Jul 09 '26
AAA games are not sustainable. People have been saying it for years. The profits needed to justify the growing amount poured into development is insane. Corporations won't settle for lower budget lower profit games either because they need the number to go up exponentially. It's all boiled up to this point.
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u/Much_Statistician864 Jul 09 '26
As a reminder Skyrim came out in 2011 and there's still no real signs of it actually making progress let alone a hypothetical release date. 2011.
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u/Enelro Jul 09 '26
Welcome to every industry as it embraces Ai that literally NO ONE is asking for.
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u/VonBrewskie Jul 09 '26
Been this way for a long time now. At least since COVID. That's the latest excuse. They got crazy COVID money, thought that gravy train was eternal, made plans for it to be eternal by people who never intended for it to be eternal. They wanted to build it up (a la Bungie) sell it, make their money and fuck everyone else who loses their jobs. Pretty cut and dry as far as that goes. It's obviously many different things, but that's a core feature of this new era. Hire, build the game, make the money, fire everyone, hire them back as contractors so as not to pay benefits, it's great. A real capitalist paradise over here baby.
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u/minimim-wage-enjoyer Jul 09 '26
On the bright side we might get a new badass shooter “from the team behind Doom: The Dark Ages” and a new studio in a few years.
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u/SpiderCenturion Jul 09 '26
This should serve as a warning to the games industry. Small studios that come up with a hit CANNOT sell themselves to huge corporations. They are allowing corpos to destroy what made their success in the first place- in return for a big check up front. In the end, Microsoft and others like them will cut them loose with no remorse. The future of games is in indies and small studios who refuse to sell out.
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u/Chessh2036 Jul 09 '26
Man I thought ID was going to be safe, or at least have minimal losses. I didn’t realize the entire studio is gutted. I thought DOOM was a franchise they wanted to keep going
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u/Multivitamin_Scam Jul 09 '26
Modern Doom Trilogy is over.
Look at what they were pitching, none of what is being reported seems to be to their strengths.
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u/Resident_Wizard Jul 09 '26
Breaking: game studio was toying with the idea of making a popular game.
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u/BlackberryAny1307 Jul 09 '26
Fuck Microsoft
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u/Low_Boot_1426 Jul 09 '26
One of the most influential studios in gaming history, with plenty of plans and promise for the future, gutted to a shell of its former self overnight. Fucking ghouls.
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u/LongswordGames Jul 09 '26
I cant think of any major studio owned by these megacorps that isnt becoming a shell of itself except maybe rockstar pending GTA6. Hopefully Larian stays strong as well because BG3 was a masterpiece
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u/SiliconRouge Jul 09 '26
Larian has been mostly owned by Sven since they started making games in the 90s. They just make what they want really. Supergiant is the same way
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u/bioshockisawsome Jul 09 '26
Why was ID hit at all? They are like one of the only successful studios they had.
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u/-CommanderShepardN7 Jul 09 '26
Microsoft and the XBOX brand are so dumb and shortsighted that I don’t know where to start.
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u/Deervember Jul 09 '26
I hope they all stick together and make a new studio.
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u/jamiecarl09 Jul 09 '26
I'm hoping in the aftermath of all these studio closures/cuts, we'll get some amazing new indie games out of it while Sony and Microsoft slowly burn.
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u/Enelro Jul 09 '26
Embark should hire them all (former DICE Devs, just making banger after banger)
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u/TransparentMastering Jul 09 '26
It’s just crazy since id has been a staple since I first started gaming in like 1992. Hard to believe after all their success. But the corporate world is a shit show, especially lately.
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u/Crew_Zealousideal Jul 09 '26
yeah id software is dead
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u/spderweb Jul 09 '26
That really sucks. New Xbox CEO is just tanking things.
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u/Infamous-You-5752 Jul 09 '26
Tbf, the previous one put them in a very precarious situation by buying out studios and have them barely do anything while being overly confident in Game Pass. Asha was given a sinking ship by Phil Spencer, the true culprit behind this terrible mess.
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u/RollingDownTheHills Jul 09 '26
Xbox and Microsoft is actively damaging the industry through their terrible management and prioritizing of AI. An utter blight.
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u/TemperedTorture Jul 09 '26
I just want to remind ppl that Microsoft owned Nokia for a bit. XBox is on that exact same trajectory. Asha has been brought in to shutter it entirely. They're just doing it at a pace where they don't want to outright claim it, but the actions align a company that's shuttering an entire division completely.
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u/No_Eye1723 Jul 09 '26
Yeap, Spencer was an idiot, fucked it all up. And now MS in its usual fashion will just close it down in a couple of years time.
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u/TemperedTorture Jul 09 '26
Yep. The insane amount of acquisitions merged entities in such a way where massive brain drain happened several times over gutting all the companies of their best talent, and this is now the final nail in the coffin after a decade of fuck ups.
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u/Different-Clock75 Jul 09 '26
People misunderstand this kind of situation.
I’ve worked in this industry for more than 20 years and I’ve been laid off twice under similar circumstances.
People sometimes talk about layoffs as if the employees are being erased forever. Losing a job sux, but many of us find new work relatively quickly. BUT in some cases, groups of former coworkers come together to start their own studios. And thats cool.
The real loss is often the projects that may be canceled as a result. But project cancellations happen all the time in this industry, you just never hear about them because of NDAs.
Over the past month, I’ve seen several reports of studios laying off large numbers of employees. When I see that, I don’t only think about the loss. I also think, “This will lead to new studios being formed by experienced teams.”
If AI played a role in those layoffs, it’s understandable that many of those developers may developpe an anti-AI policy in their studios. And thats a big freaking good news for the industry at large, but most people are to seccluded from our world to really see it.
tldr: this is good news, trust me.
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u/PatchyWhiskers Jul 09 '26
The new studios need funding and venture capital is all going to AI. We will get new indie studios run out of people’s houses and savings.
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u/Equivalent-Green-580 Jul 09 '26
More freedom and focus to make a passion project instead of a soulless money mill. I’ve watched great things come from exodus like this. Exposition 33 is a very good example.
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u/Big-LeBoneski PC Jul 09 '26
Microsoft doin monopoly stuff. Buy all the competition, wipe them out, then fail to profit due to lack of good ideas.
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u/Teamawesome2014 Jul 09 '26
Fuck all of these corporations. We need to support those who've been laid off and get them working outside of the grip of these vampires. The knowledge isn't lost, it's with the unemployed.
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u/hoochiscrazy_ Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Hoping with all my heart that the era of acquisitions is over forever now and succesful studios stay independent
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u/makefascistfearagain Jul 09 '26
I feel like having released more than two ok games in 30 years might have helped them survive better
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u/ScottyWritesStuff Jul 09 '26
Hey, here's an idea. How about instead of closing down the studio, you just... sell it off? Maybe let it go? Maybe don't buy it in the fucking first place so you don't have to deal with all the costs that come with it and the backlash from potentially shutting it down in the future?
Just a thought.
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u/Scott9843 Jul 09 '26
I don't think anybody's denying what happened to id isn't tragedy, but it's not like they wiped these devs off the face of the Earth. Hopefully they find jobs at other studios and we can continue to see what they can do.
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u/Testsubject276 Jul 09 '26
All because Xbox thought buying as many studios as possible meant back to back cash cows.
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u/RelicRogue Jul 09 '26
Well, if they knew it was coming for years, why did they continue to work there instead of slowly pulling away?And making their own company...
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u/Lopspo Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
How is 136 fired employees collective decades of knowledge? Was everywhere there for like three months or something? This is waaaay worse
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u/LowElk8859 Jul 09 '26
Hopefully the talented devs could get together and start there own software co.
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u/Embarrassed_Spend486 Jul 09 '26
This is the 2nd time Microsoft has hurt me with Perfect Dark. FUCK.
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u/HisDivineOrder Jul 09 '26
Just Xbox being Xbox. I don't know how many times they have to try and wreck as many developers as possible before people stop supporting them.
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u/Daphoid Jul 09 '26
That perfect dark game looked fun, I was excited for that before it was cancelled last year.
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u/AJfriedRICE Jul 09 '26
This is the worst move that Xbox has ever made. And that’s saying A LOT.
The thought of id doing a John Wick game?! omg
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u/zaherdab Jul 09 '26
Microsoft and sony are competing to be the worst next gen....
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u/LoSouLibra Jul 09 '26
Holy F @ whatever Fury could have been. John Wick "style"?
The combat flow in Doom Dark Ages is absolutely bankers with how parries freeze, hold and interrupt. I can only imagine how cool that would be.
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u/Weapon530 Jul 09 '26
I will never forgive Microsoft/Xbox for this. Doom to me on PC when I was young blew my mind. That same love sparked for me with Doom Eternal. This is just sad and I wished Microsoft didn’t purchase them.
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u/Low-Adhesiveness1626 Jul 09 '26
Yup. The team that works on Elder Scrolls Online was completely gutted. Has me worried about the future of the game. It started as a train wreck and quickly became my all time favorite MMORPG. They have been amazing with content and keeping the game interesting. They said there’s going to be a major shift in their roadmap
Gut wrenching for people who have spent thousands of dollars and god knows how many thousands of hours on the game
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u/TraditionalHotel8085 Jul 09 '26
This is the worst one
It was there only acquisition that was providing reasons to buy and Xbox, pumping out high quality original games at a great clip
Fuck Microsoft, especially because they want the IP(that they will never use) so they won't volunteer to sell these guys just gut them and lock Doom and Wuake away forever
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u/ChalkCoatedDonut Jul 09 '26
"Why keep 10 studios making 10 games when we can have 1000 studios using generative AI making 1000 games AT ONCE?" will probably be their second and biggest bomb Xbox will throw at everyone.
Gotta keep those investors happy by giving them the salaries destined to thousands of designers, reduced to a fraction paid to 5 or 10 interns handling prompts.
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u/RRicken Jul 09 '26
Sad? This is borderline criminal. Dismembering a legendary studio that still produces banger games in a reasonable time AND on top of that rolls their own AMAZING tech that honestly is best in class in the industry? Fucking clowns. 🤡🤬
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u/Thatoneguy567576 Jul 09 '26
This was such a braindead move man, ID has made great games. Dark Ages wasn’t a huge hit but they also put it on Gamepass so wtf did they expect
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u/djtrace1994 Jul 09 '26
Find out who the devs are and follow them.
That talent wasn't destroyed, it just isn't at idSoftware anymore.
One of my favourite modern games is The Finals, made by Embark Studios; founded by former devs of DICE who did the map and sound design for BF3, BF4, BF1, and BFV before leaving. They also did work on the first-person freerunning game Mirrors Edge and the sequel, Catalyst.
When BF2042 sucked, I knew why. Its because the devs responsivle for the golden era of Battlefield were founding Embark to make The Finals.
The Finals gives the "Only in Battlefield" feeling of destructive chaos that even BF6 lacks. It has snappy "War Tapes"-inspired sound design and music that is consistently top-notch. It has maps that feels like love letters to the Battlefield and Mirror's Edge franchises. And it has nothing to do with DICE.
Again, figure out the names behind the games and follow them and support their next projects. Those talented people are probably going to be applying that same talent at companies that actually deserve them, or they may even make their own studios to pursue games they want to make.
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u/oizen Jul 09 '26
I'll never understand this buisness strategy of buying up studios and firing everyone who works for the studios.
Did you want fucking games or not
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u/RedsnakeRider Jul 09 '26
Microsoft, a company that made billions and billions and billions of dollars in pure profit last year, will do literally anything they can to keep me from getting a new Perfect Dark.
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u/freetotebag Jul 09 '26
There are some studios that feel sacred. id is one of those to me. This is shameful. The team just put out DLC to one of their best games and this is how they’re treated.
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u/boomstickjonny Jul 09 '26
While i understand that this has pretty much tanked ID and that definitely sucks but can the experienced developers not go to another studio or start their own? Like does this series of events not have the potential to get the creative juices flowing or am I missing something?
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u/MaximusJCat Jul 09 '26
Hopefully we will see some great studios built from the ashes of what MS did this week. There’s some great talent that was let go.
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u/pteotia270 Jul 09 '26
And now they'll move from that beauty of an engine to Unreal because nobody's left with the knowledge. 😞
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u/TheAngryCrusader Jul 09 '26
I’m telling you guys, we have to stop buying from these humongous c suite companies like Xbox and Sony. They are gutting everything we as players like simply because their mega corporations that eat up smaller companies suddenly can’t turn a profit. Smaller companies and indie developers with love for games are the only way.
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u/RaeOfSunshine1257 Jul 09 '26
I hope all the half-wit boot licking mfs that were defending these acquisitions as they were happening have an absolutely horrible life.
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u/bottomfeeder3 Jul 09 '26
This is driving me nuts. Like how many times am I going to read a headline like this? Like seriously if these studios had all these great ideas for new games why the hell weren’t half of them even attempting to make them?
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u/PapaRetardo Jul 09 '26
ID software was the one studio they should have left alone. However there were issues with Dark Ages that did end up preventing people from mass buying into it. For one, the whole thing with the music composer was a big ordeal that I know pissed off a lot of fans.
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u/Psychomonkie71 Jul 09 '26
now they want new doom and new quake Obsidian was told to make New fallout game not 5 or remake of new Vegas
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u/MudSeparate1622 Jul 09 '26
Stop killing games should have started with demanding these studios retain talent over running on mostly contractors. Thats killing games before they even release. Someone needs to step on shareholders toes they are literally killing the industry from the roots
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u/Glittering-Pin-1343 Jul 09 '26
ID Software was one of Xbox/Bethesda's only good studios. It consistently released banger after banger which kept selling like hotcakes. I can't fathom why they decided to hit that studio with layoffs when it was the only one that actually did something right.
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u/AtaraxiaAKAZatharax Jul 09 '26
So I get that we’re all bummed by the layoffs, rightfully so, but at this point? Stop accepting Microsoft buyout offers.
You get what, more resources to make games, for what? To get shelved three years later? Fuck that.
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u/dimwalker Jul 09 '26
Not the first time decades of knowledge is wiped out of id.
Though usually it was spread in time more, not a single hit.
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u/Spright91 Jul 09 '26
This one is baffling to me. ID is one of the great studios that's actually releasing successful games at a good clip.
Self sabotaging here at Xbox.