Xbox’s cuts over the past week have been brutal; let’s not mince words here.
Four studios divested with a possible fifth in progress, over a thousand jobs removed already, with a further 2000 planned. The atmosphere within Xbox right now is dire — a total 180 following the wave of optimism from new CEO Asha Sharma’s appointment in spring.
As a result, there are tons of stories coming out about what the fate of Xbox’s remaining studios might be. A lot of the discourse has fallen on id Software right now, the beloved maker of DOOM. The studio is an industry staple, and arguably one of the most important and influential brands in the modern gaming canon.
What’s the truth here? I’ve been investigating Microsoft’s plans for id. Despite the callousness of Microsoft’s bean counters, I’m confident the studio will endure.
Microsoft has no plans to shelve id Tech
DOOM and other id Software games have long been powered by the id Tech engine. The engine was designed originally for Quake back in the 90s, and has since powered a huge variety of titles, including open-world games like RAGE, horror games like The Evil Within, Wolfenstein shooters, and, of course, the modern DOOM games. More recently, Machine Games’ Indiana Jones and DOOM: The Dark Ages were built on the latest versions of id Tech.
It has a very different feel to Unreal Engine, particularly for first-person games. It’s been lauded for its optimization on lower-end hardware stacks, as well as its general versatility.
The cuts to id Software have hit the teams that develop id Tech hard, with decades of expertise wiped out over night. But rumors that there’s now virtually nobody working on the engine are false. Sources tell me that there remains a solid stack of expertise for id Tech across id Software itself, and Machine Games. I’m told Microsoft also has no plans to shift either studio forcibly to Unreal Engine, which seems to have become the default for Microsoft and many other core game makers.
Microsoft provided us this statement on the topic: “There are dozens of people working on id Tech across multiple locations. Reports that there’s only one person left in Texas are inaccurate.”
In my view, Microsoft would have to be miserably short-sighted to deprecate id Tech. Handing even more power to Unreal Engine opens them up to monopolistic price increases down the line, which would be fiscally irresponsible. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma herself said in her memo to staff that she wants Microsoft to rely less on vendors for things like this. As such, I would argue that Microsoft should invest more in id Tech, not less. But hey, quarterly thinking is Microsoft’s M.O. these days. And it is true that generational talent and knowledge has been cast aside.
id Software’s headcount is now similar to what it was for DOOM (2016)
The other rumor flying around is that id Software has shrunk to a headcount that is untenable for future self-made products, relegating them to “support studio” status. This too, is false.
While the cuts have been alarmingly callous, my understanding is that the remaining id Software core team is roughly the same as it was when DOOM (2016) shipped. DOOM (2016) is arguably the studio’s best-ever game in my view, despite the comparatively smaller headcount that produced it. That’s not too suggest in any capacity that we should expect the same quality bar without proof … Microsoft removed mountains of incredible talent from the pool.
Still, I’m not sure exactly what id Software could make next. There have been reports that id Software had a variety of pitches in the pipeline, including a Perfect Dark reboot and a Western-styled shooter dubbed Ironwood. It’s unclear if any of these will be greenlit.
id Software just shipped DOOM: The Dark Ages Revelations, a sizeable story expansion for last year’s DOOM prequel. What the studio builds next remains to be seen, but Xbox CEO Asha Sharma specifically called out DOOM and Quake as franchises to invest in.
Microsoft wants to grow its most staple and recognizable IP, which at least in the near term, likely excludes “new” franchise ideas. I’d still like to see what a modern Hexen would look like … perhaps we’ll learn more at Quakecon, which is still going ahead.
It’s still been a needlessly brutal exercise
While rumors of id Software’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, the layoffs have still been callous and brutal. Staffers with decades of expertise and tenure were let go, despite the success of the modern DOOM trilogy.
Microsoft’s gaming aspirations have been heavily course corrected over the past week, in what CEO Asha Sharma has been describing as a “reset.” This has led to sizeable reductions in teams working on a variety of projects, from The Elder Scrolls to Xbox’s social media delivery and platform features. Other studios, like Blizzard, seem to have emerged largely unscathed so far. And Xbox’s hardware team building Helix has also been left intact.
Xbox has worked hard to save studios like Undead Labs from outright closure. But, it hasn’t prevented Microsoft from expunging hundreds of jobs in other areas, inside Xbox and beyond. Microsoft’s huge bets on artificial intelligence haven’t really delivered meaningful returns, and the vast capital expenditure on data center buildouts is spooking investors.
At Xbox, the layoffs reflect a challenging time in traditional gaming. Core gaming has seen a contraction owing to increased costs and lack of investment in younger cohorts, which dropped consoles in favor of Roblox on mobile devices, alongside non-gaming activities. Microsoft’s lack of investment in Xbox’s platform and social features have prevented it from finding new users out of the Gen-X and Gen-Y cohorts, many of whom are starting to age out.
Where Xbox goes from here wholly remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: DOOM is eternal, and it will outlive Microsoft’s bad decision-making.
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