The Activision-ing of Xbox | This Week in Videogames (bumper edition) 

It's called "CAPITALISM " and ONLY PROFIT MATTERS (for the rich)....absolutely nothing else , not you, me, the planet and definitely not games.

Take some responsibility for once for these layoffs. Always advocating for the acquisitions but never taking responsibility for when the companies layoff and close those acquired studios down

@@newguyiswinninghow delusional are you where you think any excutive decision at microsoft or any other company is being made in part by youtubers??

@@pedrocanas470we can safely disregard all of your opinions on the matter if you think arkane austin sucked. go play your slop the adults are talking

This is my problem with Xbox and Microsoft they buy up stuff to make good games that never come out or they buy up Studios to close them and I fear all the new IPS that they just obtained are not going to go anywhere besides the garbage all those beautiful games just wasted by Microsoft's very well-known complacency and ignorance and mismanagement I can keep going but you get the picture

And then they golden parachute to another job they suck at.

It's called Capitalism ...

Fail upwards.

Which studios?

Actually, by firing people CEO's are saving money and creating more investment opportunities... so they are actually doing what investors want and praise. Corpos don't care about the people working for those studios they buy.. only the acquired IPs have value for them. It's indeed a rotten system

Fucking hell...

We fucking knew that and people STILL kept cheering for this buyout, why did people pretned that this was a bad thing for bobby he was begging and hoping for the buyout and people kept saying this would be the best for employees and gamers!

​@@uberbyte7467 many of us saw this coming but go criticize.when we point it out.

Disgusting.

@@uberbyte7467because I still believe Microsoft leadership is better than Activision leadership. At the very least, they’ll handle issues like the sexual harassment seriously. It is overall better for the employees of ABK to be under the care of Microsoft.

Bill Gates operating procedure. Buy up and/or destroy your competition to leave his poorer quality software top of the heap! He would rather be king of a trash pile than allow everyone to share a utopia. That is Microsoft/Microshaft mindset to this day.

It says a lot that their game was still a hit, even with the attempt! What a bunch of talented devs. I hope we start seeing more independent studios being created and more refusing to be bought, we need it, our games need it, and the talented game industry workers deserve it.

Lot of talented people will join or found indie studios and give us more great games than "AAA"s would ever let them! But, lot of people live wage to wage, and they won't have time to gather connections or ideas or job offers, and will leave gaming to get themselves "real" job, costing us all the games they could have made :(

I think the same. If they have given time, announcing, marketing, creating hype, it could possibly been a much bigger success. But it was a big "why bother" approach. Good for people that know the game exist to have it "for free" on day one, bad for everything else.

muah! 🍕

I stood up and clapped.

The t-shirts and that grin is what gets you.

@@d3c0yBoY no, having a low iq did for all the bots that believed his words. imagine being fooled year after year, for 11 years by 'hey guys, i love (insert popular game on social media here), i'm just like you guys, i play games, so hey listen, look, it's our year, but listen, look, we have some delays, but don't worry, even though we have no releases this year exclusive to us, it's our year, MOUNTAIN DEW!!!!!! the tools are coming, it's our year!' - Phil 'Uncle' Spencer

Hes that creepy next door neighbor from those old PSAs that everyone else thinks is harmless because of the way he dresses. But the music says otherwise.

And he spends more time playing games than actually working.

But... but... he wore a HEXEN t-shirt!?!?!?!?!

Don't forget who Phil reports to. I'm not saying Phil Spencer is blameless, I'm saying he works for fucking Microsoft.

@@Alteredfrenzy Leadership has to be held accountable for the decisions that are being made at Xbox, or any company really. I don't care how likeable someone like Phil Spencer is when they're making decisions that are killing game studios while simultaneously spouting bullshit that is in contrast to their actions. If he's in the position that I noted where he just has no real power, then he shouldn't pretend that he does

I never thought he was. I think the man had a vision, but didn’t meet the numbers the overlords demanded, so he lost the fight and, now, Xbox will be run like any other software company… a huge mistake in a creative field. And juat plain sad for us gamers, devs and anyone who love sthe hobby.

This. Phil Spencer deserves near-zero of the good will people ascribe to him. -he's been behind the scenes making horrible decisions for over a decade now.

I do assume it's the latter though.

Bruh... Spending 2 hours learning C++ doesn't make U a "gamedev".

Employee of a strategic msft acquisition here… I feel for the entire gaming division, and am reminded more and more every day that only two kinds of acquisitions exist - each with very different expectations. I hope you, your colleagues, and everyone else in the industry land in a less bloodthirsty environment.

Gamer here. I hope you guys can survive the acquisition without letting msft completely destroy your mental health :(

@@zelaird8526 thank you! appreciate the concern. The current atmosphere isn't the easiest for overall creativity that's for sure but keeping my spirits up :)

Owners and CEOs work on average about twice as many hours than regular employees so it doesn't exactly make sense but don't let that stop the circlejerking

Lol, ​@michaeldromes3948, that's really funny.

Sure buddy they do.​@@michaeldromes3948

@@michaeldromes3948yeah sure buddy 😹😹😹

​@michaeldromes3948 I truly wonder which you'd or anyone else would rather be? A CEO "putting twice as much work" as the average worker with their pay + Golden parachute? Or the workers? We both know the answer here, also take your own advice. Higher ups should pay for their decisions first. Last I checked, people's pay don't go up outside "overtime" and considering the extreme distance between a CEOs pay is to the average employee? Well, facts speak for themselves.

Fr?

@@njsteere Yup he switched their names up.

@@AkiraFollower no words. That’s wild.

sarah bond was asked a few questions about the layoffs in a bloomberg tech interview and she couldn’t even name the studios or explain why they laid them off, just launched into corpo word salad and landing on that they did it “for the health of the industry”. absolutely ghoulish shit

@@krammy9goggler I never liked her. She always came off as a fake. I know there is a ruthless executive hiding under her facade of inclusion and human empowerment. It always made me cringe how some Xbox people Simp over her and still do.

If you ask them they do nothing but

Legit started cackling at that bit, can you imagie a reality tv show of high level executives having to put in the work they expect their underlings to do? lets go

But what would “executives crunching” even look like? More rounds of golf? More “white lines”? More “bend over if you want a promotion”?

@@Kelley_X “guys, no one leaves this room until we get the next worst idea for the industry before EA ends up doing it”

I've read this before getting to that part of the video, and for short while I lived in world where the idea was about putting executives on that hydraulic press and seeing what we get after the squish...

Former banker here 👋🏼 to vouch. Layoffs have been brutal! What stands out to me in regard to the culture in corporate America is how they leverage the customer against the worker and vice versa. Less and less customers can afford basic services-- their finances and QoL suffer. The worker can't afford to not peddle it, else their finances and QoL will suffer. There was a very palpable "us vs. them" culture in every single office I worked in. The customer was framed as the always-complaining enemy and, to the customer, the workers were seen as uncaring and unhelpful when the truth is workers had no tools to help. Truth is,both the workers and the end-users are completely dependent on the cold, callous, executives and their shareholder overlords. Workers, if you can union up, please consider it. Customers, please be kind to service workers and consider writing your representatives and pushing back on price hikes and unfair practices. To you, OP, take care & best wishes ❤

This 100%. its not sustainable all the focus on next year's increased numbers vs long term stability. The greed at the top with a non functioning government or regulation. When did we last break any big company up meanwhile we have SO MUCH CONSOLIDATION. Sorry, kinda all over the place but just so frustrating.

C'mon, bro, didn't you hear? Why keep other studios when you have Bethesda, the best game developer on the planet, which, apparently, can do it all, and then some. Our Lord and Savior Todd "I lied again, so what" Howard will swoop in and save the day. Honestly, though, they should've closed Bethesda and kept the rest.

@@TheMrDewilThey shouldn't be closing any studios. They should be making games that sell for moderately more than they cost to make, not chasing live service money faucets. Arkane hemorrhaged talent during Redfall's development, because nobody wanted to make it, at least not the way they were forced to make it by Zenimax.

​@@TheMrDewilthis is Exactly what I thought. All these studios died so Bethesda can continue to drop more shit

that actually was wild

The left hand doesn't talk to the right at big dysfunctional companies.

Truth is, the game was rigged from the start

His type always wins when growing profits comes before people.

Capitalism working as intended in other words

100%

@@wctgttmcant be rich without fucking people over in some way even if its miniscule

They will never learn. There's at least one person here coping, saying it was still a good decision.

I had to disengage with video game news site comment sections because I couldn't figure out why so few of us were seeing the insane volume of downsides with the extreme consolidation of the western AAA gaming industry. Everyone was too busy buying into the Activision needs a cleaner PR rhetoric, fully ignoring that one way or another Bobby Kotick was on the way out with his golden parachute, and that industry consolidation was a very weird way to try to remove one problematic executive. The AAA game industry is all but dying at this point for so many reasons, and the merger was basically buying the coffin for all the nails to be hammered into.

I suspect so too sadly. It's a 5-hour arthouse style game with no multiplayer, co-op or live service, with no physical release and practically no marketing at all. Genuinely shocked me to hear to was coming out in less than 2 weeks when I literally follow gaming news daily.

It definitely will they closed tango because their next game was going to take to long. NT take forever to make games so they definitely on chopping block

they also praised ninja theory in their last developer direct so given their track record its almost guaranteed

I literally didn't even know it's launching very soon until I saw a Reddit post wondering about its nonexistent marketing a few days ago. They are deliberately gutting it.

I'm wondering if they removed marketing to reduce sales and give them a better reason to close the studio.

Dunno, some violins could hit hard. Or something like "Mad World"?

@@Lenarietthe Goodbye Song from Bear in the Big Blue House

'F' to pay respect

Messed up as it is, Bobby could actually have negotiated for a seat, and some shares,

@@Lenariet This mf said lets play Mad World by Gary Jules 🤣 do you play Vanessa Carlton's Thousand Miles when you have to drive far in Forza too? lmfao

The crazy thing is they've both been promoted. You can't make this stuff up.

There have not yet been a position they could fail upwards from their current jobs, so they are stuck in there for the moment.

These are merely the public faces you are seeing. They do not represent all of the suits behind them that don't work in the spotlight. Firing the face does nothing to the corrupt body that makes the decisions as a whole.

​​@@Lahisslo Peter Principle l

Well said. Anyone who replaces Spencer and Booty will not change Xbox's current trajectory, short of jettisoning those above Xbox like Satya Nadella or Amy Hood.

Sounds great. AI will weed out the useless jobs.

@@hydra7427 AI is only as good as the data it gets. AI is susceptible to being fed falsified memories and you'll have no knowledge of what slop you'll be fed. It'll be al least another 25 years until we get competent AI. There will be wars in which people sabotage AI to malfunction and take years to rebuild. Not the world I want to live in

​@@hydra7427 Calling artists useless is literally the stupidest thing I've heard all day.

​@@hydra7427Agreed. All these bleeding hearts crying about the elimination of useless jobs simply fail to see the benefits AI provides. AI is the wave of the future and it's best to embrace it

​@@hydra7427 I mean AI bots make better troll comments than you already why do you even bother

Lol

I've heard it runs like garbage too. If it's playable at all I'd be surprised. I would encourage people not to buy until all the reviews are in any way. It may as well be City Skylines

@@animeyay4 Wait where did you hear that? From what I seen it runs at a pretty consistant 30fps on Series X (idk about Series S). If you much prefer 60fps then thats understandable, but I havent seen anything that the game is unoptimized or something (if Im wrong then fair enough, any info would be appreciated)

Why advertise a game almost no one will play?

The most attention that game is gonna get is from videos made by clowns like Synthetic Man, it’s tragic.

Hope you get something more positively stable on the way, and hope you get a chance to still tinker with games. All the best to your work

Sorry you have to go through that, best of luck to you

What games did you work on?

I say this as a union worker who didn't have to start my own union; i know its an understatememt to say it isn't easy but ya'll desperately need to unionize on a massive scale.

Being let go is not starting your career again ffs

O man good analogy from an aviation geek. Well done

Microsoft is just as rotten as Activision, so there's nothing to worry about

I had the exact same thought watching this

I'm glad Microsoft bought that lemon.

It will be and SkillUp advocated for it

Agreed. And if they don’t do well, you already put all your eggs in one basket. Big games fail all the time, not diversifying is a huge mistake.

The two biggest success stories this year are Palworld and Helldivers II. Games which weren't full price that have dev teams of 50-100 people. Balatro was made by one guy - it has a concurrent count on Steam of 12,000 players. Publishers are not going to get the message till it's too late.

Ah yes, as exemplified by their dogged and unflagging dedication to a feature-complete Halo Infinite...

What “blockbuster titles” has Xbox even got at this point? Halo? Gears? Forza? Those franchises aren’t what they used to be.

@@amysteriousviewer3772 Fallout and Elder Scrolls. The Fallout IP in particular is in a very strong position right now and they definitely want to capitalize.

I mean that was never going to happen anyway. Nintendo have more sense than they have money, and they have a lot of money. But good nonetheless.

What a meme that idea was. If it weren't for the way that stuff was found out I 100% would have assumed they were covering for their real plans

That chastity belt is reserved for Sony.

For years people have been saying "Phil is a good guy, he gets us, he's a gamer!" and I've been saying "Phil is a liar and a fraud and he's destroying Xbox with his utter incompetence and BULLSHIT." Hm. Who was right? Who was right.

Acting like Nintendo is in any way better

Agreed, I could listen to him talk all day

Hard Agree

Completely agree..

yeah, this was fantastic. great rant.

I can see the transformation now. "I will now talk about companies being greedy bastards for just over 20 minutes" 🎩

Skill up advocated for these acquisitions

😂😂😂

@@jerm5466 tell me you didn't understand the video, without telling me you didn't understand the video.

@@trash.7452 he’s obviously not advocating for them here. He advocated for them before they happened and is standing here like “oh whoopsie who could have seen this coming”. He of all people should have had the foresight to see that MS gobbling up the industry is a bad thing

@@jerm5466 "GamePass great!!!"

You know it's gonna be a good video when it starts with a metaphor!

I discovered ShillUp during TheDivision days but stuck around because of the writing style, it feels really informative but not in a dump or sensationalist way just "this is how it is". I swear I can see the paragraphs when he speaks coz its not just nonsense off the dome. Man writes really well.

@@hope_youhaveagoodday Almost every review that starts this way are classics and ones I go back to this day just to see the brilliance

i will forever admire how articulate he is, genuinely is inspiring to see how he's able to convey this sense of weight through his words

Multi platform independent, multi platform independent, Sony PlayStation seller, Nintendo Switch Seller. Yep.

Game awards don’t make you money 😂😂😂 why can’t video game fans understand business? Alan Wake 2 didn’t sell enough either. People raving about your game and not buying it does nothing for you

remind me how many awards it actually won?? And how much money does an award make you? whats that? none at all? Getting paid in publicity doesnt actually work if you can believe it. NO ONE bought hifi rush, it was a shadow dropped game with NO MARKETING. stupid decisions win stupid prizes. critical reception means NOTHING if it doesnt make money. Hi-Fi rush didnt make enough money and thats all that matters.

​@@toptiertech7291100%! Hi Fi was great, but did it lead to more subs/money? NO!!!

@@martydastooge and that’s why I don’t even argue with video game lovers who don’t understand business. They just think every kind of game they like should be pumped out no matter how poor it does financially because THEY like it

Which is why its batshit crazy they got shut down. HiFi was on game pass so its individual sales might not have been great...BUT it was so highly praised. Unique, and a complete 180 from what xbox normally did. There is basically no reason to have an xbox this generation, and HiFi was like their ownly good exclusive. And they completely trashed that. It makes no sense.

The game was SHADOW DROPPED with NO MARKETING

“Great PR” means absolutely nothing 😂😂 try to pay your bills with “great PR”

@@toptiertech7291 Microsoft has a 3 trillion dollar market cap, what the fuck do you mean

"great PR"??? what are you even talking about? I own an indie game that has only 100 reviews, and it has the overwhelmingly positive rating. That review rating means nothing when the developer had to stop working on the game because it didnt make enough money. it means absolutely nothing that hifi rush reviewed well, it doesnt make other microsoft games magically sell better or anything. Why are gamers so clueless on basic economics? do they not teach economics in school anymore?

Funny how everyone who played Baba is U for 10 minutes call themselves "developer" now 🤦‍♂️

@@hgyuuuuhj098 well since I've been in the games industry since I left Uni and have a handful of games under my belt. I think I've earned the right to. Thanks very much. But I must confess I'm confused by your aloof comment.

All three of the titles you mentioned were already in development *before* Microsoft acquired their respective studios. As you say, it's unfortunately now harrowingly obvious that they were holdovers from pre-acquisition dreams and ambitions and Xbox has zero interest in supporting such endeavours. Truly dire times.

@@rioplats If HI-FI Rush was already in development before the acquisition, then Xbox didn't even give Tango a chance to make a new game under them. That's quite a bad look for Microsoft.

@@kamurotetsu4860 Yikes, I hadn't thought about it that way...

​@@kamurotetsu4860AFTER seeing the high praise the game has gotten AND after saying they need more games like that. Tango died so Bethesda could keep making trAsh

Him leaving is literally the best thing for NT. He's a pos

It sucks, Ninjatheory Hellblade was once a ps4 darling, it sad to see them this way in the hand of Xbox

Shinji Mikami left the studio because he had achieved his goal, creating an environment and studio where cool new games could be made by a younger generation. He wanted to pass on the baton and took a backseat role after directing the evil within. Its sequel had the same director as Hi-Fi Rush.

It's crazy how misconstrued things get when we all play the game of telephone. Yes, it's fait to be concerned for Ninja Theory, but it is a fundamentally differently designed studio and the kind of game is different, though Is similar in some ways. Tango Games is a very complicated shut down and it's frankly silly for any of us to pretend we know exactly why and what happened. When the co-founder of Ninja Theory left, the studio quickly continued on and making each head developer/producer involved in each aspect Hellblade co-leads. I forget the specific people and "departments" but essentially there are currently 3 co-leading the studio between the lead music and sound director, lead narrative director, and the dude we saw speaking in the last few videos and interviews we saw who was also one of the co-founders if I'm not mistaken. But, yes.. they could unfortunately land in a not so great place. I'm hoping for the best. Also the co-founder of Hellblade II left years ago and even came out and had a comment he shared more recently and said that the team was in great shape and that he only really helped with Hellblade II in the early beginnings of the development.

He has pictures all on his Instagram of him partying and on boats with bikini clad women, he got paid lots of money from Microsoft for the studio, he is a sellout.

is

Couldn't be more accurate tbh

You could say it's an Xbox One of a kind. I'll show myself out.

This is one comment

definitely one thumbnail

It's really true across the entire market, so many great companies have been destroyed by going public and the profit over everything modus operandi that follows after. Having that as the fundamental motivator inherently corrupts true human creativity, and in the end turns the world into a smear of gray sameness.

public investment ruins everything for sure

That’s a genuinely good point. As greedy as we call Gabe sometimes, he hasn’t gone and shut down hundreds of people’s livelihoods. It almost makes me kinda respect that Half Life has taken so long in some strange way. If they don’t have something, they don’t have something.

But they do lie to their players and partners sometimes. Dare to make a visual novel about Japanese teens doing teen stuff in a properly written story? They treat it like it's CSAM and block you from publishing or playing it, if not insulting you to your face in private.

@@LoliconSamalik not gonna lie, it’s kinda EXTREMELY sus to have loli in your name and complain about a publisher blocking a “teen novel” about doing “teen stuff” my man.

Being a xbox fan and being interested in good games is an oxymoron.

​@@justwait9822That depends on the times.

@@justwait9822 Being a console fan is weird enough already

You were personally invested in MS's success? I presume you worked for them, otherwise you should seek help.

@@ThisandThat___ guy who just learned that you can be something other than materially invested in something. I was invested emotionally! Which is dumb but I love video games man, my first console was a 360 that my Nana bought for me. I thought Microsoft and Phil Spencer were doing some good, but it's a rude awakening that they are just like every other corporation.

He is the only one that i follow on news and games in general, it is so well made, no cringy meme picture or ears bleeding sound unlike the rest of the youtubers that are so unwatchable and immature with their content created for kids and genz like angryjoe and theactman. IT is truly a blessing we have Austin as the main guy in the channel while he lets Ralph appears on this channel once in awhile to cover stuff. Heh.

He's a great "We'll do better, next time. Promise." PR guy. Much like The Toddster.

For a moment, I actually thought that Apple was sponsoring the video. That would have been awkward AF.

The “turning a large boat” analogy will forever be a treasured line in ShillUp’s history

As much as ragebait 'everything bad, and you should be mad' content gets us nowhere, in this particular scenario, I can't really say there's anything we can even say to cope here. Xbox's best game in decades just got their and multiple other studios close down, all for Call of Duty... There's no saving this, Xbox is fucked, and their playerbase have every reason to be absolutely livid right now.

MS bought a company for 80bil and expected there to be instant profit. This is the result and it’s so sad to see.

@@ssj4922 honestly agreed, I’m by no means saying “there’s a silver lining to be found if we just calm down and look for it”. I think Xbox is going to fall on very hard times due to their consistent bad decisions, and talented AND SUCCESSFUL studios getting caught in the flames is a tragedy. If anything, I think when even the level headed voices are furious, you know how screwed the situation is.

@@ssj4922 no they are livid because they are acting stupid, lets be honest big company buying many studio is stupid, EA and many publisher already prove this, just because MS do it kindly doesn't mean anything, managing a lot of studio is hard, EA fail not because they are evil they fail because it is hard and costing a LOT, just stop being a fan of company, so you're not getting mad because you see this mile away the moment they buy bathesda and bliz.

Well said!

That's a great comparison. One of my most vivid memories of DS9 was Dax and Dr Bashir walking away from the daily casualty report absolutely gutted by the news. That's how I also feel every week after layoffs news.

You guys act like only game devs get fired 😂

@@toptiertech7291which other industry fires 2%-5% of its most experienced employees every month?

@@Keithustus 5% of game devs are being fired every month? There’s 268,000 game developers in just the US. 5% of them are not being fired every month 🤣 take out the embracer failings and how many layoffs are there really? Over 50% of the layoffs were directly tied to embracer group buying up a bunch of studios for a large Saudi deal and it falling through

I think he's just being flippant/facetious rather than being serious but I totally agree (I wake up at 5am every day to practice drawing before going to my full time job). It would be like saying to Ralph "Imagine just talking into a microphone for 30mins a day being your job"

It’s both, plus passion/desire, all mixed together. Same with dancing, but things like graphic design on a computer doesn’t really require talent.

@@Alex_Logan22 "graphic design on a computer doesn’t really require talent." Is the most boomer sentence I've read in a long time lol. Graphic design is skill intensive - color theory, visual communication, typography, layout design, the vast number of basic design principles e.g. rule of thirds, contrast, balance, emphasis, the use of white space, scale and proportion. That’s all before getting into digital-specific stuff such as software proficiency. You’ve either never studied art or graphic design, or you have, but you never learnt to use digital tools and you’re just making assumptions driven by ego.

@@henrye3935 I do graphic design for a living lol, I was referring to natural/innate talent not all the things you listed that come from observations, teachings, studies etc. I mentioned it simply because I had a lot of passion for hand drawn art too but no amount of practice and study could get me to the levels I easily reached with graphic design, it does require more actual talent.

@@Alex_Logan22 I mean, to an extent, yeah. If there are ten four-year-olds in a class and you ask them all to draw a clown, one of their clowns will always be more realistic than the others, but the 4-year-old who dedicates their life to learning how to draw will eventually be better than someone who doesn’t. And that person using digital tools will always be better than an amateur. The idea of innate talent is a trap. It only ever serves to stop someone from doing something. It’s about inaction. “I can’t cook” and “I can’t draw.” No. That’s a useless way of thinking. Someone shouldn’t look at your work as a graphic designer (with years of experience?) and judge themselves on equal footing, like what you do is from nature instead of from years of hard work and education. It’s all about impatience. People can’t do things because they haven’t bothered to learn how to do them (or don't have the means). Someone who "can't drawer" can spend time learning the fundamentals and improving.

Read about how Sony entered the hardware business. i am unsure of whether Microsoft took a similar approach, but they basically just bought out all the major publishers, bribed retailers, and then undercut their competition [Sega] by a staggering amount -- hemorrhaging capital to bleed them dry

I'm sure you're also a fan like me who agrees with most of the video, and are probably just noting a point of disagreement in strong terms. But I do want to push back on this a bit. I think an important part of Skillup's framing is that most people involved in the games industry, even many executives, are genuine enjoyers of videogames themselves who want to be involved with the making of good, creative, successful stuff. I think Ralph is arguing that Phil Spencer has always struck him as someone who is, at the end of the day, truly passionate about videogames, even as he helms one of the industry's juggernauts. But the point is that everyone who Phil Spencer answers to - other Microsoft execs, shareholders, etc. - thinks about game development in the exact way you are describing. And, at the end of the day, Phil Spencer would not have his job if he did not think in terms of that same logic himself, or at least show an ultimate fealty to it. I actually think Ralph's frame in this video and throughout his work is great precisely because it discusses those two things instead of just the one, putting them in tension with each other: the real, human passion for game-making that fuels a majority of people who work in the industry, and the structural, capitalist logics that are hydraulic-pressing all that passion into cold, licensed, salable IP.

@@lukesills4939 I’m a big fan of schill up. I’ve been subscribed since the heady days of his Division coverage. With regard to spencer, I really don’t care what his motivations are or what he secretly wants. I’ll reserve judgement for his actions. In this case, If Phil Spencer acquires your studio, it’s the first step towards a reduction in quality and homogenization of any creative differentiation. Now featuring layoffs, corporate antagonism and deadlines based not on selling a complete product, but in favor of arbitrary launches driven by quarterly financial deadlines. We have become so desensitized to the downsides of late-stage market consolidation that we miss the big picture stuff. The frame here is wrong, for precisely this reason. Layoffs, boiling the frog visa vie quality, rushed live service scaffolds which collapse when they have any weight put on them… these are not defects in system, they are features. And yet, the collective perspective of games journalism seems to be shock every time this happens. Who could have seen this coming ? To extend the metaphor, lets pretend that Taco Bell began gobbling up Michelin star restaurants in your area. You have a passionate team of creatives leveraging advanced tradecraft toward a central mission; to innovate on their art, to surprise and to delight customers. Sorry chef, you work for Taco Bell now. In one fell swoop, your mission is changed. Your motivations for your work, which were once closely aligned with your customer’s desires, are now not only failing in that regard but also at direct odds with the objectives of your parent company: to make all restaurants Taco Bell. I think there is a more interesting story here, one which explores the perils of the commercialization of art, but also lays context for how, we the frogs, have become truly boiled. Three decades of platform triopolies, title exclusivity and the never-ending acquisitions. If these companies ( and executives like Phil ) truly want to make great games, why do they have all the resources and a near 100 % failure rate in that mission. The lazier form of the argument, but still a better story, is a meta review of all the great game franchises and studios that went on to reach new creative heights after getting large capital infusions from these business daddies. I’ll patiently wait here while that very short list is curated.

@@lukesills4939 I’m a big fan of schill up. I’ve been subscribed since the heady days of his Division coverage. With regard to spencer, I really don’t care what his motivations are or what he secretly wants. I’ll reserve judgement for his actions. In this case, If Phil Spencer acquires your studio, it’s the first step towards a reduction in quality and homogenization of any creative differentiation. Now featuring layoffs, corporate antagonism and deadlines based not on selling a complete product, but in favor of arbitrary launches driven by quarterly financial deadlines. We have become so desensitized to the downsides of late-stage market consolidation that we miss the big picture stuff. The frame here is wrong, for precisely this reason. Layoffs, boiling the frog visa vie quality, rushed live service scaffolds which collapse when they have any weight put on them… these are not defects in system, they are features. And yet, the collective perspective of games journalism seems to be shock every time this happens. Who could have seen this coming ? To extend the metaphor, lets pretend that Taco Bell began gobbling up Michelin star restaurants in your area. You have a passionate team of creatives leveraging advanced tradecraft toward a central mission; to innovate on their art, to surprise and to delight customers. Sorry chef, you work for Taco Bell now. In one fell swoop, your mission is changed. Your motivations for your work, which were once closely aligned with your customer’s desires, are now not only failing in that regard but also at direct odds with the objectives of your parent company: to make all restaurants Taco Bell. I think there is a more interesting story here, one which explores the perils of the commercialization of art, but also lays context for how, we the frogs, have become truly boiled. Three decades of platform triopolies, title exclusivity and the never-ending acquisitions. If these companies ( and executives like Phil ) truly want to make great games, why do they have all the resources and a near 100 % failure rate in that mission. The lazier form of the argument, but still a better story, is a meta review of all the great game franchises and studios that went on to reach new creative heights after getting large capital infusions from these business daddies. I’ll patiently wait here while that very short list is curated.

@@lukesills4939 Spot on, yes it is a job but most of these people see the joy in the art form and that is why they do what they do. It must be so disheartening to see studios like tango create something so special and ultimately be closed to never create anything else together again

Yep, and SkillUp was a part of that crowd

Consumers have been fed relentless pro corporate propaganda for at least the past 40 years. I used to roll my eyes when people talked about "late stage capitalism" and generally trusted the invisible hand of the market more than the government, but it's become increasingly clear in the past decade that these companies are absolutely being run worse than most of our gov and that they've been allowed to consolidate and monopolize to a degree that the market can't self correct.

Most of us were thinking about the humanitarian possibilities for Activision Blizzard, that Microsoft's acquisition would help foster a friendly work environment. We were wrong, of course. Horribly, horribly wrong.

oh nah didn't you hear a bunch of basement dwellers think it's trash cos they've never seen a real woman.

Actually over a 100 billion since 2018

​@yomamasohot6411 I had ABK at $70 billion. And Bethesda is like $5-6 billion right? Not sure if it gets quite up to $100 billion but an insane investment nonetheless.

They aren’t buying these companies as investments in good games, but as investments in stock price. Buying a company like Activision will make share prices higher which will make the shareholders happy which is the only thing they care about

Remember that they also wanted to drop hundreds of millions of dollars just to get some games out on Game Pass on day 1. Not investing in their development, not getting them on there permanently, but just to have them on there at launch. Pretty sure the Rocksteady "An Hero Association" title got my comment nuked, but that game had them prepared to pay $250 million. $300 million for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and $100 million for Assassin's Creed: Mirage as well.

Yeah they didn’t really have a say in that payout. It’s also irrelevant. But that’s like saying that Lebron James makes could pay 833 Americans 60k a year. Does that mean he shouldn’t make it?

@@toptiertech7291 Bobby Kotick ain't shooting three pointers

@@lunaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa No but he is good at investing and making money... which is more valuable in the capitalistic world we live in. Is he the devil incarnate ? maybe , does the system care ? no.

@@toptiertech7291 No, he should not. He's a parasite getting fat off the labor of others. Just like most CEOs.

Absolutely 🤣🤣 LeBron James does not need unimaginable wealth goofy

that's true

Yeah people act like Microsoft has never don’t anything like this before

Can’t believe anyone cares this much about an iPad commercial. What an insane take

Me too. I don’t care about playing Call of Duty; I had game pass to play indie titles I never would have found otherwise. These closures send a crystal-clear message about their priorities and I’m not ok with giving them my money anymore

I'm thinking the same.

@@swans184so are you going to buy those indie games separately or are you pulling support from small devs?

If you still want to play some of the indies on game pass you could buy keys from resellers so your money isn’t going to Microsoft. (Or I guess just buy the indies that appeal to you most)

@@toptiertech7291 I'll buy the games on Steam or GOG. Like I always have. I've never had any interest in Gamepass whatsoever.