While testimonies have started to appear on social networks since the start of the week, particularly among moderators and the content creators who frequented the now dissolved team, the information collected by the journalist Sylvain Trinel for BFMTV reveal that the subsidiary's dozen employees already knew they had decided on their fate since the very beginning of the year, before the ax fell for good at the end of March, as part of the vast layoff plan which hit the entire Microsoft Gaming network. A downsizing of 1,900 people, an industry record, decided in the wake of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, celebrated with lots of cases of champagne a few months earlier.
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Broken promises
In addition to their actual dismissal, former employees of Bethesda France denounce the method. Because if some employees left in January, others stayed until the last day, hanging on the promise of being kept by their owner. A commitment ultimately not kept. “ We were fooled around for a few weeks with the promise of a trip to Microsoft's premises. », Testifies a former employee. However, everything was going well until then, the acquisition of Bethesda by Microsoft in September 2020 for 7.5 billion dollars not having changed much in the daily operations of French employees, who were in charge of relations with the press, community animation but also the localization of the publisher's games.
“ For several months, we were able to continue doing what we had been doing since the beginning, without interference from Xbox or Microsoft. » Employees testify today, however, that a certain “discomfort” or even “distrust” had ended up settling between the French offices of Bethesda and Microsoft. If The Elder Scrolls Online is considered a success in France, Bethesda has entered a period of turbulence in 2023 with Redfall and Starfield, a former employee speaking of “ catastrophic launches » for both.
“ We had a very bad experience with the catastrophic launches of Redfall and Starfield, and perhaps that's what convinced Microsoft to shut down its local offices and refocus its forces. “, he confided. The bitterness remains no less great, especially since this closure took place without a sound and without employees being able to express themselves on the issue. Employees who are now simple spectators seeing the phenomenal resurgence of interest enjoyed by the Fallout franchise since the release of the Amazon Prime Video series.
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