more xbox layoffs

another 650 people impacted today

thinking back to a year ago, there were a lot of high hopes pinned on the XBOX deal from inside Blizzard... we were excited to leave Bobby Kotick behind, and Phil Spencer made sure to call Blizzard "the Pixar of game studios" every chance he got. he rizzed us up left and right and talked about just wanting to support our dev efforts by giving us more funding and freedom. we hoped that a leadership team who understood our history would enable new games and franchises less tied to microtransactions, loot boxes, or battle passes.

but not even a year later, it's clear the deal was a golden parachute from one failed leadership team to another.

they immediately killed the biggest new franchise / game that had been in development for almost half a decade. yes, there was chaos on the team due to changing engines mid-development but the world-building and gameplay showed so much promise despite all that. they did sweeping layoffs which impacted 20% of the company in one day (january 26, 2024). they continued cutting jobs at a smaller level over the next several months, seeing teams shrink and focus more on job security than doing new work. and today they directly blamed the ABK acquisition for why another 650 jobs were cut which they tried to avoid ever claiming after spending 3 years arguing this purchase wouldn't impact headcount at all.

was it always going to be this way? i don't think so, otherwise why spend $70 billion on it. what changed along the way was Microsoft cutoff the infinite money glitch that XBOX had relied on for 20+ years. they made microsoft gaming (aka XBOX) into its own company within the larger group, which means they have to balance their budgets, report earnings and losses, and leaders are now held responsible for their failings. what that meant in the short-term was that everyone in a leadership position at xbox promoted themselves and got fancy new titles. what it means in the long-term is that studios are closing, jobs are being cut, and the price of gamepass has skyrocketed (while the benefits associated with it have shrunk).

the xbox leadership team is not ready or capable of leading a team in this new reality; Phil has literally failed his way up for almost 40 years at Microsoft, he started in QA and stayed loyal, taking the job of his manager whenever they left, and slowly climbing the ranks whether he was qualified or not. and now he clearly is not qualified to run an entire gaming company especially at this scale, and its the employees and gamers who are hurting, not him.

am i writing this out of anger? partially, yes. i'm a life-long gamer that pivoted to design as an adult and went back to school for this career. i have paid for and earned certifications along the way. i read books and articles and attend confrences and mentor people who are up-and-coming. i got my dream-job at Blizzard in 2022 and worked my ass off every single day i was there. i gave them extra hours, put in nights and weekends, and poured my heart into the role and people it touched. i was somehow the only person that was included in the layoffs while attending a leadership planning week on Blizzard's campus... one day i was there with everyone, in person planning our next year and beyond, and the rest of my week was in a hotel room crying and feeling like a failure/embaressment.

there wasn't even a reason why. i think that's what hurt the most... some external consultant looked at a spreadsheet and cut X number of jobs to save Y amount of money and i just happened to be a casualty of that uninformed decision.

i haven't touched a blizzard game since. i've left my xbox to rot. and every time there are more announcements like this, i get riled up and depressed all over again... i'd landed my dream job and was doing everything i could to make sure i'd be there the rest of my career. for the first time in my life, i was looking at things like the 10 and 15 year employee rewards and thinking about what i'd do when i got there. i was playing our games with coworkers outside of office hours, which was the first time coworkers were friends. and now those channels are largely silent because they are keeping low profiles and worried about their livelihood.

we all deserved better. we still do... but i'm pretty convinced the only way to do it now is through unionizing. the people in charge are too disconnected from everything else to do a good job without oversight and collective bargaining. maybe if we'd done that push while i was there Blizzard wouldn't look so different today. and maybe i'd still have my dream job with the best coworkers i've been able to work with so far.

instead i'm... well, dreading my job again every day and struggling to sleep every sunday bc it means monday comes faster.

09.12.2024 / disillusionment central