Xbox, You're Hurting The Culture

It doesn't have to be like this.

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I had the reaction that a lot of people had when Microsoft’s latest strategic action in the arena of capitalism was revealed, which was: “What the hell is even happening? What are they doing?”

In an internal email from Xbox Game Studios head, Matt Booty, the studios’ chief described changes to Bethesda that were being made as a way of “prioritizing high-impact titles and further investing in Bethesda’s portfolio of blockbuster games and beloved worlds which you have nurtured over many decades.” Those changes were the closure of three studios, and the merging of one team into another. Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog Games would be closed, while Roadhouse Games would be merged into ZeniMax Online, presumably to work on Elder Scrolls Online.

Arkane Austin, while being a collaborative sibling to Arkane Lyon, developed the critically acclaimed Prey, and like Lyon is known for its excellent and immersive narratives. It also developed Redfall. Tango Gameworks was the only Japanese studio Xbox owned, its single flag stamped down in a market Team Green has long struggled to crack. It was founded by Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, and under his stewardship the team released two horror games in The Evil Within 1 and 2 and a first-person magic ghost hunting game in Ghostwire: Tokyo before going on to create last year’s triumphant Hi-Fi Rush. Alpha Dog Games created a well-regarded mobile game in Mighty Doom, and Roadhouse Games was an imperative support team that'll still be doing that work, just under a new name. None of these teams made huge games. One was purely a support team. Another made games in a market that, pre-ABK days, Microsoft had little to no presence in. The other two were storied studios, who had built reputations strong enough that players looked out for their names in trailers. When we all gather to watch the big E3-esque showcases in June, I and every other player who has paid even a casual amount of attention to the industry will more than raise an eyebrow at the mention of Tango Gameworks or Arkane Austin. These names have well-earned prestige. 

But all that wasn’t enough, clearly, for Booty, Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, Tim Stuart, and all of their bosses, and the big boss, Satya Nadella. I’m naming these people because they’re all part of Xbox, and of course Microsoft leadership. None of these people can be held solely responsible for the damage wrought by these layoffs and the implications for what Xbox’s future strategy might be. But together, they are all responsible. Executives are the ones who are supposed to make the big decisions, set years-long strategies in motion, and see them across the finish line. And that’s quite convenient because when you say you’re the one seeing the bigger picture, you can keep making it up as you go along. To say that the closure of Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin is for the betterment of the Xbox business is the kind of slop I’m not buying, today or any day of the week. And if you’re someone who’d say that it is for the betterment because it’ll make a line on a graph go up and increase the shareholder profits, know you’re a fool for doing so. When your business is creating art, the long-term health of that business will always be determined by the dedication you bring to making works of art that continue to push boundaries wherever they exist. You can’t achieve that without investing in new ideas, exploring new avenues. If Xbox sees its way forward in making ‘every screen an Xbox,’ is that proposition still enticing when those screens are all just Call of Duty and a handful of other live service titles? Today’s top games prove there will always be people who only want that kind of thing, sure. But you can’t tell me that that future is beneficial to anyone who isn’t a shareholder or part of Microsoft corporate leadership.

I also want to be clear that I’m not signaling the closure of Austin or Tango as some special, more devastating event compared to the last two years of layoffs industry wide. These hits have been coming, non-stop from all sides, not just Microsoft. There’s just something so egregious about closing a studio that a year prior had a “Game Of The Year”-level video game. The most gracious thing you can call these decisions are short-sighted, because while the quarterly financials will no doubt be better than if they didn’t close these studios and layoff hundreds, this has critically damaged the whole of Xbox Game Studios in more than image. 

Looking at Arkane Austin, it’s no secret that Redfall did not land the way anyone wanted it to. It was a disaster, and it would’ve taken a lot of effort, likely years-worth to give it that redemption arc we see games have from time to time. But it’s also no secret that you can’t say it was down to the developers dropping the ball. Before Microsoft mucked up, Bethesda did. Arkane Austin was told to make an online multiplayer game when it had a team of people who wanted to work at the studio to create single-player, narrative-driven games. The developers at Austin were given a bum-wrap from the beginning, and we know that because of some excellent reporting done around Redfall. So if we, the public, know it, surely that must’ve been clear to Xbox leadership. Frank conversations about what happened no doubt took place, and you can put the blame where you want but the fact remains that Austin was set up to fail more than they were to succeed. So if that was something Xbox leaders knew, and thanks to more reports we know the team was pitching its next project to be a return to its narrative roots, what’s there to gain from shutting it down at this point? The line going a little higher, just for a short while, with the full potential it could go down the next quarter? 

Austin also had more than just a prestige name. It had a sibling that it could rely on. The two Arkane teams have always leaned on each other. Lyon might have a bit more of its own prestige, but it’s also now lost its main collaborator. If the team at Austin wanted to return to making strong, narrative-focused single player games, are the few extra financial points worth the long-term sacrifice of no longer having this team under your umbrella? Of course not, because the short-term gain potential for closing them is a few extra quarterly points on the board. The long-term potential would have been releasing a strong narrative game in a few years that becomes a core part of the Xbox brand, and a strong example that Xbox does also have premium, AAA narrative experiences on its side. It would potentially go a long way to silence any doubters that Xbox can produce the big first-party narrative experiences you can find on Sony’s side of the aisle.

To close Tango Gameworks, however, is even more short-sighted. The last release from Tango was an award-winning title that remained in the top running for Game of the Year for 12 months. Even with a January release, December rolled around, and no one had forgotten about the impact of Hi-Fi Rush. This game stuck with people. Xbox had a brand new IP that had been internally cooked and executed by a team of developers who were mentored and guided by an industry legend. Mikami left after Hi-Fi Rush launched, and did so leaving behind a team that just pulled off a massive, massive achievement in what they created. A team he helped mentor to that moment, confident they had the tools to continue on their own while he went on his next venture. They didn’t even get that chance.

What is anyone inside or outside Microsoft supposed to take from this. Why would anyone working at an Xbox Game Studio team believe their job was safe? When one team failed to deliver, they weren’t given a second chance. When another succeeded to deliver, they were told it wasn’t enough, and punished for it. This isn’t how you build. This isn’t how you show you care about an artform, about works that define modern culture in ways that’ll continue for years to come. This isn’t how you show you care about the people creating these works. But executives don’t care about any of this – because shareholders don’t care. Fuck shareholders. 

Games are no longer on the fringes of society; they are just as deeply embedded in the mainstream as anything else. Microsoft now holds so many cards with all its acquisitions in the last five years. These shutdowns send the clear message to any studios under Phil Spencer and co. that even if you deliver a fantastic game that brings critical and commercial success, that’s not enough to save your studio from being shut down. If you have one commercial failure, even when the reality is that poor mismanagement of the project from corporate higher-ups played a huge role, those same management-level executives will shut you down for their own mistakes. Imagine this same reality played out with Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Rare, Obsidian Entertainment, Arkane Lyon, Machine Games. All those studios, with legacies to look up to for future generations of game developers, with infrastructure to help mentor and train new creators, gone, all because they couldn’t generate profit in the way Call of Duty can. If you think this wouldn’t happen then perhaps you’re just more optimistic than me. But I look at what’s happened with Tango, Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Games and Roadhouse as a red flag signaling just how much damage Xbox could do to games and to modern culture, if this is how it’ll operate. I understand all these big publishers and platform manufacturers are running a business, and they need to make money to keep that business alive. Still, that argument is nothing more than a cow’s opinion in the face of egregious greed, inflated executive salaries, and flippant disregard for the people that actually make the games. I reject that this cold corporate world is just the reality we have to deal with. We can all choose to not make that true. We can choose something better. It doesn’t have to be like this.