bloomberg.com

WalnutLum, do gaming w Bloomberg - Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings

Why are they targeting Zenimax so heavily, don’t they have 50 other acquisitions they can suck the blood from

Hdcase,

Give it a year. Thankfully Toys for Bob was able to buy themselves out, otherwise surely they would have either been shut down or put to work in the Call of Duty mines.

restingboredface, do gaming w Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings

Some interesting info in this article. If game pass hasn’t really paid off (in maintaining growth of new or recurring users), this may be an indication that they will make some changes to it.

onlooker, do gaming w Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings
@onlooker@lemmy.ml avatar

Mat Piscatella, executive director of analysis firm Circana, said that monthly, non-mobile, video-game subscription spending in the US “has been flat to low single-digit growth” since the middle of 2021.

Good. Now that we’ve established that the subscription-based videogame market is pretty much saturated with very little potential for growth, can we please stop shoveling out all this live service crap? It didn’t work for Bioware, it didn’t work for Rocksteady Studios and it didn’t work for Arkane Austin. Stop it.

lazycouchpotato, do games w Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings - Bloomberg
@lazycouchpotato@lemmy.world avatar

Gift article I found online.

The part that interests me is this:

Jill Braff, head of ZeniMax studios, said in the town hall that she hoped the reorganization would allow the division, which also develops Fallout and Doom, to put more focus on fewer projects. “It’s hard to support nine studios all across the world with a lean central team with an ever-growing plate of things to do,”

Why gobble up so many studios to consolidate into a gaming megacorp, then get gobbled up yourself by Microsoft? What’s the purpose of acquiring so many studios and holding onto so much IP if you can’t handle them?

Katana314,

I suppose anyone who saw the rise of EA a decade or so back saw this coming.

I didn’t, because, well…I think I naively expect the world of business to make sense.

tux,

That was my take too. “We’re spread too thin”… Then why the fuck did you buy up all these companies? Sure sounds like they just gobbled up all the good IP to hoard like a dragon on its pile of gold. Or to make sure those IPs don’t make it to Sony exclusives, wish the FTC would hang them by the balls since they’ve basically done opposite of what they promised during the mergers.

SupraMario,

Because CEOs are fucking idiots. So many companies do this shit, it’s not just the gaming side. A company starts to grow and instead of keeping with an organic growth they buy companies over and over.

NOT_RICK,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

For that sweet buyout check. Management doesn’t care about the wake of destruction they leave, they got their 30 pieces of silver

Carighan, do gaming w Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

C-suite bonuses ain’t gonna pay themselves, you know?!

godzilla_lives, do gaming w Bloomberg - Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings

Welp, reckon it’s time I take my happy ass down to the local used game store and sell my Xbox. Thing’s collecting dust anyway. I think I’ll get a new camera lens instead.

penquin, do gaming w Bloomberg - Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings

Why are they “cost cutting”? Are they going broke or something?

shnizmuffin, do gaming w Bloomberg - Microsoft’s Xbox Is Planning More Cuts After Studio Closings
@shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lol avatar

Spencer said that “the thing that has me most concerned for the industry is the lack of growth.”

Oh hey there’s that Rot Economy thing again.

TachyonTele, do games w Take-Two Interactive shuts down the Studios behind Kerbal Space Program and Rollerdrome

KSP 2 should have been a huge slam dunk. Take everything from the first one, redo the menus, up the graphics, and add some new stuff. It blows my mind they messed it up so badly.

sebinspace,

And optimizations…

fuck it needed optimizing…

Nindelofocho,

It has gotten better but man still so much undelivered. Im just sad and im tired of being sad. Im fully pledging to never buy a big publisher game unless it absolutely proves itself first and even then im still gunna be hesitant cause vote with your money and all that. Honestly outside of KSP2 Ive already been purchasing and playing mostly indie games for the last 2 years anyways

sebinspace,

I think I’ve gotten about as much out of KSP1 as I’m ever going to get. I really like the USI mod, but the lack of optimizations keeps me from doing anything really complex. By the time I have all of the facilities on the Mun to have full manufacturing (or… munufacturing, if you will), the game is already lagging to the point of unplayability.

CheeseNoodle,

Its because they fired or otherwise pushed out every single original developer towards the tail end of KSP1.

MonkderDritte,

To be fair, KSP 1 was pretty bad on the technical side. And they were laymen, creating what they wanted to create.

dustyData,

They were non-game developers doing a videogame. But they were pretty good programmers for what they put out. It’s still the best and most popular space exploration sim game ever made. The thing does the thing they said it was going to do, it will probably melt your computer during edge cases, but everywhere else it’s a solid game. They even managed to confine the kraken to very extreme circumstances. If it is a hack job but it works, then it isn’t a hack job.

CheeseNoodle,

Not to mention the physics are stable enough that people were building helicopters using stage seperators and landing gear long before we got any real joints.

Cybersteel,
@Cybersteel@lemmy.world avatar

Well those execs need to be pushed… out a window.

Cheems,
@Cheems@lemmy.world avatar

Wow that is insane, I didn’t know they fumbled it so bad. I remember when it was announced and the fan base was so pumped. I played a little of the first game but never got super into it.

EddoWagt,

Man I was so excited for KSP 2, I couldn’t wait to build a moon colony with friends. Shame they never delivered what they promised

refalo,

I wonder why developers never put much worth in what people actually want or you know, just talk to them and ask?

Or is this some kind of “users have no idea what they want” situation?

Semi_Hemi_Demigod,
@Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world avatar

The fact that they released a game with wobbly rockets and then charged $50 for it shows they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. It should have been free for early access with a simple way to report bugs. I’m not gonna pay that much to do QA work for them.

MonkderDritte, (edited )

up the graphics

Add some geology formation algorythm better than mere octaves.

Delusional,

The same could be said of multiple games these days. KSP, payday, cities skylines, etc.

Smokeless7048,

that, and fix some of the spegheti code from KSP 1. I love the game, but no one argued that it wasnt a hack job

TachyonTele,

It definitely was a hack job. But it was a little hobby project that a non videogame company decided to be cool about and develop it. It was also an early access for wicked cheap.

The sequel was given way more manpower, experience, and money right from the start.

Smokeless7048,

for sure! i bought it really early on, and it was amazing.

Just wish that they hadn’t bodged it so bad.

dustyData,

The sequel was given way more manpower, experience, and money right from the start.

Which was then squandered by bad management by scrapping almost two years of work to startover with entirely different staff. Let’s not kid ourselves, from a managerial POV, KSP2 is a perfect template of all the “what to do to ensure a video game fails at launch”.

TachyonTele,

Couldn’t agree more. What really hurts is KSP is one of a kind. There’s nothing else like it. Hopefully someone out there pulls a City Skylines and makes a successor.

But even the sequel to that game was botched… So who knows.

dustyData, (edited )

The problem is the corporate greed. But anyways, Juno exists. It has the same spirit of accurate spaceship design and flight simulation, even if the tone is distinctly different.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

But anyways, Juno exists. It has the same spirit of accurate spaceship design and flight simulation, even if the tone is distinctly different.

Would you happen to have a link for that? My Google-Fu is wanting in trying to find more information about it.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.en

dustyData,

Juno: New Origins. It is currently on sale on Steam. It’s also developed by like, 8 people or something like that. It’s a ridiculously small team.

CosmicCleric, (edited )
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Juno: New Origins. It is currently on sale on Steam. It’s also developed by like, 8 people or something like that. It’s a ridiculously small team.

Thank you! I’ll be sure to check it out.

Edit: You’re right, it’s on sale for only $8. I picked it up.

(BTW, I don’t work for anyone, not getting a cut from any of its sales, etc. etc.)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.en

Adalast,

As far as I’m concerned the inclusion of the “anti-DoTA” clause in their EULA murdered it for me. I was so excited. KSP is one of my favorite games of all times, largely as a result of the vibrant and very technically advanced modding community. Same goes for essentially all of my favorites; Rimworld, Backpack Hero, Factorio. The free labor that expands the games in major ways extends the value of my money and let’s me have fun forever in them.

Putting in a clause in a EULA which automatically and irrevocably assumes all ownership and rights to any code or assets that are created for a game is just too far. Assuming rights at all is a huge issue for me, but I can accept that it is beneficial to assume royalty free licenses to the mods, I’ll even begrudgingly accept clauses that allow developers to gaffle features and optimizations from mods without giving remuneration or even acknowledgment. But wholesale ownership that revokes all rights and licenses for the independent 3rd party creator. Fuck that. I will never support a game that I find out is treating the people who keep games alive and relevant for decades for free like that.

Cybersteel, do games w Take-Two Interactive shuts down the Studios behind Kerbal Space Program and Rollerdrome
@Cybersteel@lemmy.world avatar

Idk if it’s true but I heard they were gonna pull og ksp from the stores soon so that ksp 2 have better legs.

Olgratin_Magmatoe, do games w Take-Two Interactive shuts down the Studios behind Kerbal Space Program and Rollerdrome

Best case scenario, they learn from No Man’s Sky with what few devs they have left. Worst case scenario, the game remains shit, and we all continue to enjoy modded to hell KSP 1/Juno/etc.

index, do games w Take-Two Interactive shuts down the Studios behind Kerbal Space Program and Rollerdrome

something something redshell

dustyData, do games w Take-Two Interactive shuts down the Studios behind Kerbal Space Program and Rollerdrome

I predicted KSP2 was going to be eventually abandoned and IG closed around the time of the launch, when the first industry layoffs were starting to happen. The mildest thing I was called for suggesting this was pessimist and it only got worse from that term. I suppose I was half right…so far.

AlexisFR, do games w Take-Two Interactive shuts down the Studios behind Kerbal Space Program and Rollerdrome
@AlexisFR@jlai.lu avatar

Well another studio took over from Intercept Games to work on KSP 2 a while ago, right? Star Theory, iirc.

modcolocko,

stay theory was shut down and absorbed by intercept games

AlexisFR,
@AlexisFR@jlai.lu avatar

Oh yes, I forgot it went that way…

billwashere,

According to the wiki page… “In May 2024, Take-Two announced it would shut down Intercept Games but continue to update Kerbal Space Program 2 under the Private Division label.”

dustyData,

I wonder how will they manage that logistically. They are firing every single developer from IG. Who exactly in Private Division is going to be doing the updating? I suspect they will just brush a little of the code that is ready, then completely abandon the product in a year or so.

rbos, do games w Take-Two Interactive shuts down the Studios behind Kerbal Space Program and Rollerdrome
@rbos@lemmy.ca avatar

They abandoned Linux support. Fuck them. It was one of the only games that did. Linux users were a bug part of their initial success, and they dumped us as soon as the money came in.

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