Microsoft is laying off 10,000 people today, including in its gaming divisions such as Xbox and Bethesda. This mass layoff arrives exactly one year after Microsoft announced plans to purchase Activision Blizzard for $69 billion bloomberg.com/news/articles/… The scale is not yet clear, but Bloomberg has so far confirmed job cuts at Bethesda Game Studios (Starfield) and 343 Interactive (Halo). A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment on how many employees of the gaming division were laid off

Thanksgiving evening bombshell news. Nobody knows what the result of an antitrust lawsuit might be, but the landscape is different than it was when the DOJ lost its case against AT&T/Time Warner (and the NYT just ran a story last week about how that was the "worst merger ever")

https://twitter.com/politico/status/1595547174636584961

Activision stock now trading at ~$73 after market, down from ~$76 today. Microsoft deal is for $95/share. Xbox fanboys went after me a few months ago when I pointed out Wall Street's skepticism of the deal closing, but as I've been saying all along, this is no sure thing

Last weekend, Bayonetta's former voice actor called for fans to boycott the new game, saying she was offered just $4,000 to work on it. Her Twitter videos went viral and stoked a debate over voice actor wages. But the full story is much more complicated... bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Platinum offered Hellena Taylor between $3k and $4k per session for at least 5 sessions, according to two people familiar with the deal and documentation viewed by Bloomberg. In response, the people said, Taylor asked for a six-figure fee and residuals. Negotiations fell apart

This, from a studio head, is crunch culture defined. Of course nobody is “forced” to work insane hours. But imagine the reduced bonuses and lack of promotion opportunities if you don’t? “You do it because you love it.” Weaponized passion. This is why people burn out of gaming Such a weird coincidence how the guy bragging about how his team works 6-7 days a week for 12-15 hours a day because they love it also happens to be the guy who controls all their salaries, titles, and current employment status

Rockstar Games has spent the last four years overhauling its culture and working to become a kinder, more progressive company. But what does that actually look like? And what does it mean for the company's next game, Grand Theft Auto VI? My latest feature: bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Rockstar's overhaul started in 2018, when staff called out its culture of crunch, bullying, and frat-house antics. The company has ousted managers accused of abuse and promised to cut down on overtime. One employee calls it “a boys’ club transformed into a real company.”

Activision Blizzard exec Brian Bulatao sent an email to staff this afternoon saying the company is "lifting our vaccine mandate for all U.S. employees" as they prepare to go back to the office on a regular basis. People who work there say they're... not thrilled! The email also suggests that most Activision Blizzard employees will soon be asked to return to their offices on a regular basis, although I'm aware of several who have made arrangements to permanently work from their homes so the company is making exceptions

Blizzard co-leader Jen Oneal just told staff she's stepping down, leaving Mike Ybarra as the sole head of the company. A very short run -- Oneal and Ybarra took over Blizzard leadership in August following the departure of J. Allen Brack, who left in the wake of the California lawsuit against the company for sexual discrimination and misconduct

I've gotten hundreds of messages like this today, in case you're wondering what happens when you point out the lack of diversity at a video game company Just want to make it crystal clear that Twitter is and has always been part of the problem

A timeline that will help clarify some things:

2007-2008: Activision and Vivendi Games/Blizzard merge. Blizzard largely left autonomous.
2013: Bobby Kotick buys out Vivendi and seizes total control of Activision Blizzard. Soon begins installing his own lieutenants at Blizzard 2017-2018: With Blizzard revenues tanking, Activision starts pushing the company to cut costs, produce more games at a faster pace
2018: Morhaime, sick of Kotick, resigns. Brack takes over
2018-2020: Blizzard's reputation smacked by Diablo Immortal, Blitzchung, and WC3 Reforged

BREAKING: Blizzard president J. Allen Brack is leaving the company, Activision Blizzard just told staff. Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will take over as "co-leaders of Blizzard."

Filed to Bloomberg Terminal, story will be live shortly This news comes during a cultural reckoning at Blizzard in the wake of a California lawsuit two weeks ago alleging discrimination at the company. Activision Blizzard president Daniel Alegre said in an email to staff that Brack was "leaving the company to pursue new opportunities"

Thread:

1) The other day, an ex-343 artist made some comments about Halo Infinite that I shared in order to make a broader point about the games industry at large. I shared them in part because I'd heard similar things from several others at 343:

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1390307075075411969

2) Today, the artist made a video walking back his comments and complaining about reporters running articles citing him without contacting him first (a very reasonable complaint). Since then I've gotten hundreds of abusive comments from Xbox fanboys accusing me of doing the same.

NEW: following the flop of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt board members are set to receive huge bonuses ranging from $4 to $6 million. Meanwhile, some employees say they got lower bonuses than expected because the board wouldn’t delay the game: bloomberg.com/news/newslette… Employees said their bonuses ranged from $5k to $20k. A CDPR spokesman said the average was ~$34k. Staff had expected more for their first big game in 5 years, and the bonuses, tied to profit-sharing, would have been far higher if Cyberpunk hadn't been such a mess at launch

NEW from me on the failure of Google Stadia:

- Missed initial sales targets by hundreds of thousands
- Tried to take on consoles rather than starting small
- To bring in games like Red Dead, Google spent astronomical sums (tens of millions *each*)

Story: bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Just to reiterate the absurdity of this thing: Sources say Google spent tens of millions of dollars -- the budgets of some major games -- PER Stadia port.

Publishers like Ubisoft and Take-Two were raking it in

Why has Amazon failed to break into video games? Interviews with 30+ current and former employees point to one root problem: the guy in charge had never made a game before. He'd hire veteran devs... then ignore them.

New investigation with @Priyasideas: bloomberg.com/news/features/… Amazon Game Studios boss Mike Frazzini, an Amazon lifer, would tell staff that their games had to be "billion-dollar franchises." They had to all be the size of Call of Duty... yet they also had to be innovative and unlike anything anyone had played before.

- Last year, when CDPR explained that it shares 10% of profits with staff, gamers and pundits assumed the devs would get rich. Adrian Jakubiak said he made around $400/month when he started as a tester in 2015. In 2018, as a junior programmer, he said he was making ~$700/month - If you're wondering just how much Cyberpunk 2077 changed over the past decade: well, up until 2016, it was a third-person game. Features that were originally envisioned (wall-running, flying cars, car ambushes) were cut along the way (not atypical in game development)

What went wrong with Cyberpunk 2077? Interviews with more than 20 current and former CD Projekt staff paint a complex picture. Unchecked ambition, technical woes, unrealistic deadlines, and above all, one belief: "We made The Witcher 3 -- it'll work out." bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Devs at CD Projekt said despite promises that crunch would not be mandatory, they felt pressured to work overtime on and off for years. I can't share all the stories, but here's one on the record that may help explain why it's been infuriating to see people downplay CDPR's crunch

Journalismism thread: Often, people who want to confidentially share their stories ask: how do you protect my identity? How do you ensure I stay anonymous? I have this conversation a lot with people, so I figured I'd share a few thoughts and techniques publicly. In an ideal world, no article would rely on unnamed sources, but in reality, NDAs and press-averse employers make it essential to offer anonymity if you want to get at the truth. One of a journalist's top priorities is protecting those sources. So how do you do that?

Holy shit - Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 is so busted that Sony is offering full refunds and even removing it from the PlayStation Store (!!) playstation.com/en-us/cyberpun… Pretty stoked for Cyberpunk 2077: A Realm Reborn

Imagine working so many hours that in June your studio head sent out an email apologizing to everyone’s spouses/partners because it “often means [the devs] cannot participate on the home front” and then seeing quotes like this from an executive who owns $70 million in stock

https://twitter.com/pcgamer/status/1321637895350980609

Wow, CD Projekt Red's Adam Kiciński just sent out an email to staff (passed to me) apologizing for these comments. "I had not wanted to comment on crunch, yet I still did, and I did it in a demeaning and harmful way... What I said was not even unfortunate, it was utterly bad."

BREAKING: Microsoft is planning to buy Zenimax/Bethesda, an industry-shaking acquisition that will give Xbox ownership of Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, and more. Story hitting Bloomberg shortly Microsoft is paying $7.5 billion for Zenimax/Bethesda

A video in Ubisoft's new game appears to link Black Lives Matter to terrorism. Yesterday, Ubisoft staff expressed outrage on an internal message board. In one message seen by Bloomberg News, the game's director apologized and said they'll remove the video bloomberg.com/news/articles/… The director of this game and manager of the studio behind it is Charlie Guillemot. If that name sounds familiar, it's because his father is Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft's CEO. Charlie Guillemot graduated university in 2014 and became studio manager in... 2014