4 Studios, Including the Creator of the Top Xbox Game of 2023, to Close as Microsoft Shifts Strategy

The death in the soul

We are not going to replay for you the verse of the crisis which has affected the world of video games since 2023. We have witnessed numerous sickening layoffs and closures of studios appreciated by players for too long months. We are also not going to repeat the reasons brandished by our entertainment behemoths who make these decisions that they ensure “difficult”. Cost increase here, rationalization there, you start to know the song. Today, it is the firm which ensured that “create worlds“virtual was similar to bring”light in the darkness” during the DICE Summit 2018 which plunges four of its studios into darkness. The green ogre definitely crushes Alpha Dog Studios (Mighty Doom), Arkane Austin (Prey, Redfall) but also Tango Gameworkthe former studio of Shinji Mikami to whom we owe two episodes of The Evil Within and especially Hi-Fi Rush, the highest rated Xbox game of the year 2023. As for Roundhouse Studios, the members of the team are absorbed by Zenimax Online.

In an internal message addressed to its teams, published by IGN, Matt Booty explains these “changes” by the need to “prioritize high-impact titles”, to identify “the best opportunities for success“, to allow “to further invest in Bethesda's portfolio of blockbuster games”. “Some teams will be reassigned to others, while some of our colleagues will leave us” writes Booty. This “consolidation” (the word is dropped) generates “difficult decisions“, but “Bethesda remains one of the main pillars of Xbox” promises the boss of first party titles.

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“Don’t use us as doormats”

For several months now we have been witnessing a change in the discourse of Phil Spencer and his teams. While a few years ago, the American company seemed to be placing its pawns in defense of a healthy corporate culture based on creative risks, the words have changed. In August 2023, Spencer admitted in an interview with World that his primary responsibility was to be certain that “his business was growing and profitable”. “Because if business is good, we will last and that's what matters” he added.

On social networks, the voices of influential actors have been raised. “It's absolutely terrible” comments on X/Twitter Dinga Bakaba, the creative co-director of Arkane Lyon. “Permission to be human: To all the executives reading this, a friendly reminder that video games are a cultural and entertainment industry, and your job as a company is to care for and help your artists to create value for you” we can read. He adds : “don't engage us in gold fever gambits, don't use us as doormats for miscalculations or blind spots, don't turn our work environments into Darwinist jungles”.

“To everyone who has been pestering me for years about why we didn't allow Moon Studios to be acquired by a major publisher. That's why. I lived through the 1990s and saw what happened when small studios were acquired by EA. Never again” declared Thomas Mahler, the boss of Moon Studios (Ori, No Rest for the Wicked).

All that remains is to see how far Microsoft's desire for performance will go for its Xbox branch. In a world where the American firm is obsessed with “high impact titles” (dixit Booty), what do studios like Double Fine or Compulsion Games still represent? There is something to tremble about.