Jason Schreier: Xbox said today it is shutting down four game studios: Arkane Austin (Redfall), Tango Gameworks (Hi-Fi Rush), Alpha Dog (Mighty Doom), and Roundhouse (support). The video game industry carnage continues, with no end in sight. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Xbox said today it is shutting down four game studios: Arkane Austin (Redfall), Tango Gameworks (Hi-Fi Rush), Alpha Dog (Mighty Doom), and Roundhouse (support). The video game industry carnage continues, with no end in sight. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?www.bloomberg.com

i want more hi-fi rushes and fewer whatever bethesda is doing

Same, and that's what makes me feel like we're hitting a watershed moment in gaming. It feels to me like an existing schism between casual consumer games and hobbyist games is deepening. Microsoft doesn't want small passion projects with decent margins; they want Skyrim 2 and nothing less.

My biggest shock is that Tango isn't even being merged or restructured. It's not being subsumed. It's just... Gone.

Isn't this exactly the kind of stuff that Microsoft said they wouldn't do after acquiring ActivisionBlizzard?

And exactly why their merger was being blocked for so long, since everyone expected them to do it as soon as they could?

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Exactly. It's the same thing that happened when Disney acquired 20th Century Fox: they swore they would preserve jobs so they could get federal approval, and then axed studios and laid off thousands as soon as possible.

Turns out pinkie swears are not legally enforceable. Now what we need is to make the legal consequence chopping off the implicated pinkies from the executives responsible. Then they might think more carefully about making public commitments they don't intend to honor.

In this case though, they did live up to their promise for the exact amount of time they'd agreed to. The moment the deadline was passed though, they immediately did the thing they'd promised not to do for that limited period of time.

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Djeezus fuck. Tango delivered the game of the year for many players and they shut it down? Another lesson for Japanese studios to NEVER work with Microsoft...

The push on acquisitions has had devastating consequences.

The part I find completely insane is that megacorporations can buy up all these small outfits when they want to, but when they no longer want them, they destroy them rather than release them back out into the world to do whatever made them worth buying in the first place.

Their argument would be that they may want to retain some staff or IP but I agree, it sucks.

How would that even work under capitalism? They'd have to *sell* the outfit to another daddy warbucks who want their multiplayer Fortnitealike

What is the fucking point of making unique video games then?

As far as the people on top are concerned there is none. All a new release has to do is to produce a stock price bump, so their natural goal is the minimum viable product that will achieve this. Anything beyond is actively discouraged.

None of these people are in the business of making video games. Their sole business interest is in stock market manipulation.

It's ironic since as we've seen with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Marvel's Avengers, and Redfall. Doing similar things as everyone else is far from a sure bet and can in fact be a really bad bet.

The game space has always followed the movie industry model to some extent ….which right now is cheap easy sequels

Hi-Fi Rush was phenomenal, one of the most fun experiences I've had in gaming. This is such a tragedy

I mean, no one can act even remotely surprised about Arkane Austin. Redfall is one of the most puzzling disasters in the history of the industry.

I reported on the story behind its development last year: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?www.bloomberg.com

Apparently, they were stuck in a holding pattern on the game waiting for the Microsoft acquisition and internally wanted to scrap it many times. Leadership wanted a game to deliver and for it to be a co-op looter shooter. The resulting product is the fruit of their shared contempt.

Well maybe they should have tried sticking it to The Man by making an actual good game instead, just an idea

Would have been fired either way. Game was doomed from the start.

I mean, if a non microsoft owned team had pushed what they did live, people would rightly call it a con job, I'm not cutting them any slack on that.

That's not what game dev is like. It's not that they made a bad game on purpose, is that they worked on a project with little to no direction, that none of them were passionate about. Minus the hype, it's about as good as any licensed movie game, which get cranked out similarly.

Oh a good game? Like Hi-Fi Rush?

Tango Gameworks did that, and yet

take a toasterbath

Redfall isn't puzzling at all. The publisher wanted arkane to mainly produce a specific kind of game from now on. They tried and failed and thus got the axe because to the mind of a Microsoft exec a studio that isn't primarily focused on live service or yearly release slop doesn't deserve to exist.

Death by committee/giving the money guys exactly what they asked for.

This all sounds suspiciously like "the internet blamed EA for Anthem being in Frostbite despite multiple credible sources reporting it was Bioware leadership not EA that pushed for Frostbite". Especially since Redfall was in development pre merger.

Nah, Arkane Austin was absolutely hemorrhaging talent during Redfall development and completely contrary to Arkane's prior work patterns. To me, it looks like Bethesda was bullying them into making Redfall as a part of a package to appeal to Microsoft.

Imagine being a scumbag who’s justifying people losing their jobs. Fuck you.

yeah your toy kinda sucked so fuck all those people who just lost their jobs

“These changes are grounded in prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades.” If you're avoiding new things for your portfolio, that's not investing. That's just stock buybacks.

But I was told that Microsoft buying everything under the sun would save gaming and usher in world peace.

Seeing Tango Gameworks us heart-wrenching. Hi-Fi Rush was Microsoft's biggest success in ages. Yet, all that success still netted the devs pink slips. It's reinforces the message: Don't work in AAA. There is no job stability there.

Tango only listed 65 employees. Their closure is bad news for the industry, but the crisis isn’t restricted to AAA development.

FTC can't come soon enough...

All of that because fucking Bethesda management (TODD HOWARD AND FRIENDS) wanted to push a fucking live service game which existed even before the buyout, To a studio that had not the expertise in live service games, was excellent in single player narrative games And NOBODY stopped fucking Todd.

Tango being closed after their biggest hit game is honestly confusing

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Being a game dev actually isn’t sustainable atm because of western practices and policies. I feel like we are legitimately destroying our industry here for poor leadership and greed.

can they shut down blizzard battle.net runs like dogshit

RIP Tango... Ghostwire and Hifi Rush where both unique and amazing

Dear dog all waggy, this is not a carnage anymore; it's a butchering floor. :\

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I feel like the demand for cutesy indie games is high enough that these folks hopefully land elsewhere.

I hope some of the jobless form some kick ass gaming studios.

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