I think the larger issue is that so many studios get set up as things that can be sold by one or two people for the benefit of only one or two people. Like, the larger issue is that everyone who has been working at the studio should have some amount of say in if it should be sold or not. And if they do sell, you should be getting a cut of the truck of money.
But if I were to buy one, I’d like that every worker at the factory who assembled it got paid some percentage of the factories profits, and had some amount of input on the leadership of the company as a whole, not just an hourly wage.
Does it generally work like that? No, but doesn’t mean I don’t think that’s a better way to do things.
Unless the company is an ESOP, has some sort of profit sharing mechanism or is a co-op, they do not, they only get paid an hourly wage or a salary. If the company becomes more profitable, they do not see a consummate increase In their compensation. And they have no say on if the company is sold, and they are not compensated in anyway for the company they’ve contributed to being sold.
Where do you think the wages materialize? They get paid out of the product sold. Literally every time you buy something the company uses that money to compensate their workers for their time and skill.
Profit is revenue minus expenses. Wages are part of expenses.
Wages are used to ensure that people working there are able to keep working there, covering day day expenses of the workers.
Wages rarely reflect the real value of the effort put in by the people working at the company. They reflect the cost to the worker of choosing to work at the company.
I think that workers at a company should be payed some percentage of the profit of the company, with financiers and investors receiving some percentage of the profit in turn.
I agree, wages should be distributed more evenly with the bare minimum wage being so that fuckhead todd who never does anything and only works part time could still afford paying morgage/rent, food and transportation. Id also like managers and ceos be held responsible for any big fuckups of the company. How nestle is still allowed to exist is beyond me.
Regrettably…they kinda do. At least for studios like Obsidian and Double Fine, the landscape has become very grim. They are studios of a size that is very difficult to keep afloat in this environment. Investor funding in the gaming segment has dried up post-COVID, and these kinds of mid-level (or higher) devs were very reliant on that kind of funding. In light of that, these studios may have seen Microsoft as something of a safe harbor. They knew these layoffs were always a possibility, but I think it was better for them than the alternative. Or at least, it was the best choice for the people leading these studios prior to their respective Microsoft acquisitions. The devs that are being laid off are not the same people that signed off on the acquisition.
The modern American dream - figure out how to get paid tens of millions to spend someone else’s tens of billions chasing my own tail. No, I don’t create a fucking thing. I get rich by dismantling shit that used to have value!
There’s a logic to a smaller team being more “agile” than a larger team, but yeah these companies aren’t turning them into smaller studios. They’re expecting fewer people to do the work of a larger studio. The problems are obviously except to execs who are literally too stupid to think.
News of Everwild’s cancellation arrives amid more layoffs at Microsoft; the company is reportedly slashing nearly 9,000 jobs as part of new cuts at Microsoft.
Wow. It was rumored to be a big layoff, but 9,000 is way over any forecast. And this is what? The third so far since Covid? Is there anyone left working for them, at this point? Or is it all seasonal contractors?
EDIT: turns out that they gutted The Initiative (the supposedly AAAA studio that never released anything), cancelled Everwild, cut 50% of Turn10, 10% of King, and cancelled an unknown number of unannounced games, including one MMO title developed by the TES Online devs.
What a bloodbath. But hey, at least Phil is safe.
Contractors never count in layoff numbers, so this number would be much, much worse if you included them. The actual job losses could easily be more than doubled.
Considering that it skipped the last showcase despite reportedly releasing next year, I don’t have high hopes for that one.
Wouldn’t be surprised if it was built on the backs of seasonal contractors. Seems like that’s the strategy they have chosen for their other big IPs as well (Forza Motorsport 8 and Halo Infinite).
It’s incredible that the clowns in charge of the gaming division and responsible for dragging it through the mud for all these years get to keep their job and will probably see an increase in their salaries as well, while the people that lost their jobs because of their incompetence will get nothing but a sad press release from Uncle Phil the HR department.
I don’t think we get granular info on this stuff, all we know is this latest round of cuts involves sales too as they are moving to outsource some of that work. And that Microsoft’s total head count has been mostly level since they added a ton of people with acquisitions and hires in 2022.
More bad news from Xbox, I was hoping they'd cut Phil Spencer lose instead...They need a brand-new lead to make Xbox awesome again. I can't say that I am surprised, though, as this game has been in dev for 7 years. However, there should've been something that could be salvaged and made into a viable game.
And it wasn’t even news back then. Almost immediately after the BG3 release Swen Vincke talked about the next project being an in-house IP again. And not much later they quit working on a DLC.
I’m fine with a different studio doing every Baldur’s Gate iteration. Bioware, Beamdog, Black Isle, and others have done Baldurs Gate games and I enjoyed them. I see no reason to tether the franchise to a single developer, particularly one whose heart isn’t in it anymore.
With the success of BG3, Larian has a great opportunity to strengthen their own IP. Their Divinity games were great but had pretty nonsensical world-building (to this day, I still have no idea how DOS and DOS2 are related plotwise), and one of the great things about BG3 was the fusion of Larian game design with an appealing fantasy world. If Larian can build up a coherent setting of their own, their future would be bright.
That’s fair, but as someone that has not played the game, you need to provide some specifics otherwise it just gets lost within a lot of praise for the game (which I’m not sure I will like).
I do, but I see that it’s a preference thing. However, the whole game/story felt to me like it was a passion project. I feel like it’s a gamble at best whether or not whoever hasbro finds to do it will be able to give it the same dedication.
Stumbles ass first into giving creative control of their property to one of the most devoted and talented studios of the decade, leading to a wildly successful and popular game.
“That’s great! Let’s give it to someone else!” - some stupid ass exec who can only see ahead one financial quarter at a time.
I thought Larian themselves didn’t want to make another one? Could be wrong though but it would make sense for them to use their surge in popularity to create something that they wholly own.
While I respect Larian’s right to turn down another time intensive game like Baldur’s Gate…I do worry about the same thing you are concerned about: A shitty executive that only cares about cash and not art! A love for art and appreciating great storytelling is what made Baldur’s Gate 3 the breakout hit. The AAA industry is too shortsighted to be capable of creating such a marvel like BG3, though they occasionally stumble into success without understanding why. They won’t let their teams cook and, it’s very likely, their creatives have either moved on to another studio or became a stress casualty (Bioware’s own term).
Larian probably wouldn't have turned it down if Hasbro hadn't fired pretty much everyone who worked with Larian on BG3. Sven Vincke (CEO of Larian) seems like the kind of guy who would take such an action personally, which is probably why he doesn't want to work with Hasbro again and rightfully so, fuck Hasbro.
His team was also burnt out after working on BG3 after such a long time, Sven respected the wishes of his team over the lure of making more money. It’s important to remember, Sven actually cares about the team he’s assembled over short term profit. Screw Hasbro any day of the week is such a mood, but, not an inciting incident that lead to Sven making his choice.
polygon.com
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