Today's Microsoft layoffs jogged the memory of Halo veteran and freshly laid-off Marathon designer Dan Callan, who says former Xbox boss Don Mattrick demonstrated how gaming executives "just live on different planes of reality" compared to people making games.
In a Bluesky post, Callan recalls demoing Halo 4, on which he was a mission designer, to Mattrick. "I was showing off my mission and when the Mantis showed up with its new cool intro vignette he raised his hand and said to the group, 'Has anyone here played... Diablo 3?'"
Perhaps you've guessed where this was going. Mattrick suggested that Halo 4 "should copy their idea of a real money auction house for campaign mech skins," says Callan.
You may recall that Diablo 3's auction house was, ahead of a bird's nest of server issues, the single biggest problem with that game at launch. This invasive form of monetization obliterated all game integrity, invited toxic market manipulation, and was ultimately removed by Blizzard. It is, perhaps, not the best feature to emulate.
After Mattrick's suggestion, Callan says "every single human being around him reacted like this was an amazing groundbreaking idea while simultaneously realizing this was the stupidest shit imaginable since everyone with a brain had seen how hard that blew up in their face and the game was 90% done."
Nevertheless, Callan says "they still had to act like it was a good idea and make the pretense that they were making action items and shit," as if to placate the higher-ups.
Callan concludes: "So yeah game execs remain stupid detached money grubbing idiots."
In a reply, he clarifies, "I just want proper accountability wherever we can get it, and I just don't believe most of the people being laid off were responsible for the decisions that necessitated them." This sentiment has been echoed
In a follow-up post, Callan adds, "This isn't even the dumbest thing that was said that day but I'll let other people tell those stories. But it's so much worse."
Halo seems to be one of the few projects that's at all safe under Xbox, yet it's also emblematic of Microsoft's inconsistent strategy: the next Halo game is coming to PS5 even as new CEO Asha Sharma insists on a return to exclusive games that can prop up the struggling platform.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a better summary of today's games industry: a designer, who was just laid off by the company that made Halo after mismanagement buried its flagship game following a $3.6 billion acquisition, alleging executive incompetence, and a proposed repeat of Diablo 3's famously disastrous monetization scheme, at the company which just laid off thousands of people and previously acquired the makers of Diablo in a deal nearing $69 billion.
