With Microsoft's plan to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox still looming over the industry as a whole and affecting various studios, id Software lead services programmer Chris Hayes says developers are left without "the incentive to care anymore."
Microsoft's cuts are certainly no secret, with a plethora of studios – including Bethesda and the like – losing developers mid-production. In a recent interview with Auf ein Bier over on YouTube, Hayes comments on the situation himself, criticizing companies for widespread layoffs.
"They weakened their studios," he starts (thanks, PCGamer). "When they do layoffs, they weaken and devalue their studios – but they don't understand that."
He continues, stating that companies like Microsoft "continue to say that they have strong studios while they weaken them." It's tough to listen to, seeing as he's definitely not wrong.
Heck, CEO Satya Nadella recently claimed Xbox has "the best IP" and "talented studios around the world," calling himself confident that it'll "return" to growth after its worst quarter in years amid the mass layoffs. So, yeah. Definitely not wrong.
Hayes goes on to say that "it is our experience together, our working together, and our past experiences that make the studio good" – and obviously, layoffs don't exactly fit into that picture.
"Yeah, you could just throw away half and bring in more later if you happen to need more number of hours to to fill out the check boxes that you want," the dev then admits… but that's not going to work in a company's favor, really.
"You're just going to end up with a mediocre game and people aren't going to be happy and everyone will know it," as Hayes states. "And that's the long-term thinking that doesn't seem to be present."
Not only is it not present, according to the id Software lead, but companies "fundamentally don't understand what makes the business." They might know numbers for marketing and the like, but not how to deliver a decent product.
"The actual reality of what makes a good game, how it gets done," that's what companies like Microsoft fall short of comprehending, as Hayes outlines. "They're so disconnected from that, they don't understand what it takes to build a team, what it takes to maintain a team – and that failures are important, too."
Rather than throwing in the towel following failures, the dev says it'd be beneficial to learn from them and allow team members to grow. But, sadly, that's far too often not how things work out.
"If you make a mistake, that's the last mistake you make as a team. That team is done. So no one's growing, no one's learning, and as a result, individuals don't have the incentive to care anymore."
I'm immediately personally reminded of The Elder Scrolls Online and how its team over at ZeniMax is back down to the same size it was a decade or so ago – and it's not a good reminder.
Hayes isn't the only person at id Software to speak out about the layoffs, either. Last month, producer Andrew Willis said, "You'll never get another World of Warcraft or Morrowind in the current climate" – a statement that sadly feels like it might just ring true if things carry on the way they've been going.
Here's hoping the industry heals a bit over time and that we see less news about studio reductions.
