5 ms·

There's no real evidence in here that the IDTech team or the "coders" were specifically let go. I'm not saying it didn't happen but the article is just raging a

There's no real evidence in here that the IDTech team or the "coders" were specifically let go. I'm not saying it didn't happen but the article is just raging at the idea of it happening without presenting any evidence of it. I can't help but think the industry will be better off in a few years after this Xbox "restructure." That's a lot of knowledge and talent that's no longer stuck in 14 layers of middle management hell.

georgeecollins 3mo ago
Not the OP, but Scott Miller said "most if not all" coders at ID were laid off. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-layoffs-july-2026 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-layoffs-july-2026 I hope the industry will be in a better place in a few years. There is this recurring theme of big companies rolling up little developers and destroying their development culture.
- eightysixfour 3mo ago
  Yes, it was mentioned in the article. I just don't count a tweet from an "insider" as particularly strong evidence anymore.
  - CuriouslyC 3mo ago
    Miller has a history with id, and has probably gotten numerous reports directly from boots on the ground in the company.
    - starkparker 3mo ago
      Sounds like Digital Foundry's also looking into it, without much detail or confirmation: https://bsky.app/profile/dark1x.bsky.social/post/3mpyvnrbwds2t https://bsky.app/profile/dark1x.bsky.social/post/3mpyvnrbwds...
- bix6 3mo ago
  > There is this recurring theme of big companies rolling up little developers and destroying their development culture Why are the little devs selling to the big companies in the first place then? If you’re crushing it as an Indie studio why wouldn’t you stay that way knowing how big tech acts?
  - pjc50 3mo ago
    The directors like money. And are probably beholden to their investors.
  - all2 3mo ago
    Money. Someone made a lot of money selling IP and the skills of the team.
  - munificent 3mo ago
    Because big companies can spend way more on marketing than you. If a big company decides to make a game very similar to yours, they can make theirs win by throwing more money into marketing than you can. Do you want them to spend that marketing budget on your competition or on you?
  - mayoff 3mo ago
    Here’s what Tim Schafer said about selling Double Fine to Microsoft at the time: > "I think it's perfect for us, because we can just focus on doing our inspired weird games, and not worry about how we're going to get our next deal. We aren't chasing down our next funding and thinking about how many more months of funding we have all the time." https://gameinformer.com/2019/06/23/tim-schafer-on-microsoft-acquisition-and-the-future-of-double-fine https://gameinformer.com/2019/06/23/tim-schafer-on-microsoft...
    - account42 3mo ago
      That's founder speech for "I'm getting a big paycheck out of this deal lol".
  - SepiaSapient 3mo ago
- thewebguyd 3mo ago
  The industry could have been in a better place already if the DOJ hadn't allowed Microsoft to buy up all these studios. I have near zero hope we'll see any meaningful antitrust action in the future either without a complete overhaul of the incentives in politics. Xbox div's annual revenue is $23 billion. Its big enough to be its own company and sit upper-mid pack of the F500 on its own. It'd be the number 3 or 4th top gaming company globally, beating out Nintendo even. No reason for Microsoft to not have been broken up by now, let alone have been allowed to buy all the studios they did. Don't forget they also mislead the FTC to convince them to allow the Activision/Blizzard acquisition to go forward, and then once allowed laid off 1900 employees, mostly admin/HR & support, forcing it to integrate into Microsoft gaming and operate less independently.
  - epolanski 3mo ago
    When UK blocked the merger this very board flamed anti business old Europe.
    - superxpro12 3mo ago
      One does wonder how many bots were involved in the flaming
      - teamonkey 3mo ago
        I’d love to blame collective internet myopia on bots, just as I’d love to blame leaded gas for the mental state of geriatric politicians, but in my heart I don’t buy it.
  - rightbyte 3mo ago
    I like the concept "Goomba fallacy", but it is a bit confusing since Goombas are exactly the same, where as board users are at least me and not me. Edit: Keeping to SMB1 for simplicity.
  - toast0 3mo ago
    > The industry could have been in a better place already if the DOJ hadn't allowed Microsoft to buy up all these studios. Yes, but it's not the DOJ's job to tell Microsoft when they're lighting their money on fire. There's no unfair competition from this kind of thing. It wasn't any different when leather companies or old media would buy up studios and run themselves out of business. Microsoft buying out studios could be anti-competitive, but Microsoft would have to not be Microsoft.
Hikikomori 3mo ago
What's the tweet it references then?
kibwen 3mo ago
What we know so far is just that id is "cutting a "significant number of staff": https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mpydldy43226 https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mpy... https://www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/1up5pta/95_reportedly_laid_off_at_id_software/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/1up5pta/95_reportedly... And I'm not sure I share your optimism that the industry will be better. It might not be worse, because it's possible that Microsoft is just so dysfunctional that id would never be allowed to produce another good game anyway. But the people losing their jobs here might be financially better off just leaving the game industry entirely. In particular, if the engine devs were totally cut, it's not clear to me that there's room for a studio to differentiate itself with a custom engine in the modern day.
pizza234 3mo ago
> There's no real evidence in here that the IDTech team or the "coders" were specifically let go Scott Miller said it himself: > Big day today at Id Software [...] today, Microsoft/XBOX decided half the team was deemed USELESS and needed to be let go [...] With literally the best of the best coders in the industry.
- eightysixfour 3mo ago
  I like Scott Miller but he doesn't work there and "insider" information after layoffs is almost always part of a PR game by one side or the other. Again, not saying he is wrong, just that a tweet from someone secondhand really doesn't do it for me as evidence anymore.
starkparker 3mo ago
We might not hear much on that until tomorrow, since most iDTech development was out of the Frankfurt studio. If they're shutting down Frankfurt, it'd be worth getting antennae out. Looking at LinkedIn, I see mostly people from tech (design tooling, game AI, QA), art (modeling, mats, UI, character), design (levels, gameplay), and production roles in DFW being cut, but haven't seen engine roles or Frankfurt-based employees. ZeniMax's QA team was notably unionized in 2023: https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/quality-assurance-workers-microsofts-zenimax-studios-establish-companys-first-union https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/quality-assurance-worker...
Toluhis 3mo ago
Thanks for reminding me to be more critical in my reception of news.

georgeecollins 3mo ago

Not the OP, but Scott Miller said "most if not all" coders at ID were laid off. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-layoffs-july-2026 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-layoffs-july-2026 I hope the industry will be in a better place in a few years. There is this recurring theme of big companies rolling up little developers and destroying their development culture.

eightysixfour 3mo ago
Yes, it was mentioned in the article. I just don't count a tweet from an "insider" as particularly strong evidence anymore.
- CuriouslyC 3mo ago
  Miller has a history with id, and has probably gotten numerous reports directly from boots on the ground in the company.
  - starkparker 3mo ago
    Sounds like Digital Foundry's also looking into it, without much detail or confirmation: https://bsky.app/profile/dark1x.bsky.social/post/3mpyvnrbwds2t https://bsky.app/profile/dark1x.bsky.social/post/3mpyvnrbwds...
bix6 3mo ago
> There is this recurring theme of big companies rolling up little developers and destroying their development culture Why are the little devs selling to the big companies in the first place then? If you’re crushing it as an Indie studio why wouldn’t you stay that way knowing how big tech acts?
- pjc50 3mo ago
  The directors like money. And are probably beholden to their investors.
- all2 3mo ago
  Money. Someone made a lot of money selling IP and the skills of the team.
- munificent 3mo ago
  Because big companies can spend way more on marketing than you. If a big company decides to make a game very similar to yours, they can make theirs win by throwing more money into marketing than you can. Do you want them to spend that marketing budget on your competition or on you?
- mayoff 3mo ago
  Here’s what Tim Schafer said about selling Double Fine to Microsoft at the time: > "I think it's perfect for us, because we can just focus on doing our inspired weird games, and not worry about how we're going to get our next deal. We aren't chasing down our next funding and thinking about how many more months of funding we have all the time." https://gameinformer.com/2019/06/23/tim-schafer-on-microsoft-acquisition-and-the-future-of-double-fine https://gameinformer.com/2019/06/23/tim-schafer-on-microsoft...
  - account42 3mo ago
    That's founder speech for "I'm getting a big paycheck out of this deal lol".
- SepiaSapient 3mo ago
thewebguyd 3mo ago
The industry could have been in a better place already if the DOJ hadn't allowed Microsoft to buy up all these studios. I have near zero hope we'll see any meaningful antitrust action in the future either without a complete overhaul of the incentives in politics. Xbox div's annual revenue is $23 billion. Its big enough to be its own company and sit upper-mid pack of the F500 on its own. It'd be the number 3 or 4th top gaming company globally, beating out Nintendo even. No reason for Microsoft to not have been broken up by now, let alone have been allowed to buy all the studios they did. Don't forget they also mislead the FTC to convince them to allow the Activision/Blizzard acquisition to go forward, and then once allowed laid off 1900 employees, mostly admin/HR & support, forcing it to integrate into Microsoft gaming and operate less independently.
- epolanski 3mo ago
  When UK blocked the merger this very board flamed anti business old Europe.
  - superxpro12 3mo ago
    One does wonder how many bots were involved in the flaming
    - teamonkey 3mo ago
      I’d love to blame collective internet myopia on bots, just as I’d love to blame leaded gas for the mental state of geriatric politicians, but in my heart I don’t buy it.
- rightbyte 3mo ago
  I like the concept "Goomba fallacy", but it is a bit confusing since Goombas are exactly the same, where as board users are at least me and not me. Edit: Keeping to SMB1 for simplicity.
- toast0 3mo ago
  > The industry could have been in a better place already if the DOJ hadn't allowed Microsoft to buy up all these studios. Yes, but it's not the DOJ's job to tell Microsoft when they're lighting their money on fire. There's no unfair competition from this kind of thing. It wasn't any different when leather companies or old media would buy up studios and run themselves out of business. Microsoft buying out studios could be anti-competitive, but Microsoft would have to not be Microsoft.

Hikikomori 3mo ago

What's the tweet it references then?

kibwen 3mo ago

What we know so far is just that id is "cutting a "significant number of staff": https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mpydldy43226 https://bsky.app/profile/jasonschreier.bsky.social/post/3mpy... https://www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/1up5pta/95_reportedly_laid_off_at_id_software/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Doom/comments/1up5pta/95_reportedly... And I'm not sure I share your optimism that the industry will be better. It might not be worse, because it's possible that Microsoft is just so dysfunctional that id would never be allowed to produce another good game anyway. But the people losing their jobs here might be financially better off just leaving the game industry entirely. In particular, if the engine devs were totally cut, it's not clear to me that there's room for a studio to differentiate itself with a custom engine in the modern day.

pizza234 3mo ago

> There's no real evidence in here that the IDTech team or the "coders" were specifically let go Scott Miller said it himself: > Big day today at Id Software [...] today, Microsoft/XBOX decided half the team was deemed USELESS and needed to be let go [...] With literally the best of the best coders in the industry.

eightysixfour 3mo ago
I like Scott Miller but he doesn't work there and "insider" information after layoffs is almost always part of a PR game by one side or the other. Again, not saying he is wrong, just that a tweet from someone secondhand really doesn't do it for me as evidence anymore.

starkparker 3mo ago

We might not hear much on that until tomorrow, since most iDTech development was out of the Frankfurt studio. If they're shutting down Frankfurt, it'd be worth getting antennae out. Looking at LinkedIn, I see mostly people from tech (design tooling, game AI, QA), art (modeling, mats, UI, character), design (levels, gameplay), and production roles in DFW being cut, but haven't seen engine roles or Frankfurt-based employees. ZeniMax's QA team was notably unionized in 2023: https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/quality-assurance-workers-microsofts-zenimax-studios-establish-companys-first-union https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/quality-assurance-worker...

Toluhis 3mo ago

Thanks for reminding me to be more critical in my reception of news.