Microsoft is closing down several gaming studios, including Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin

Robert Newbie · May 7, 2024

I was just talking about this in another thread. Microsoft bought all these indie studios, but I'm not sure what the reasoning was. I figured it was to secure a ton of exclusives to push the Xbox line, but they haven't had the time to do anything with them yet. Having that been said, are these studios recent acquisitions?

AxlSt00pid · May 7, 2024

So let me get this straight: Sony closed down Studio Japan and Studio London (with Media Molecule being next according to rumors) because their games didn't sell shit (sadly)

And now Microsoft closed down Tango when Hi-Fi Rush sold very well and had very good reviews? What the fuck?

I was kinda joking that we were near a 2nd videogame market crash but damn it seems that it will indeed happen sooner rather than later if shit like this keeps happening every now and again

tech3475 · May 7, 2024

Robert Newbie said:
I was just talking about this in another thread. Microsoft bought all these indie studios, but I'm not sure what the reasoning was. I figured it was to secure a ton of exclusives to push the Xbox line, but they haven't had the time to do anything with them yet. Having that been said, are these studios recent acquisitions?

My suspicion is that they're moving on from a 'exclusives to sell consoles/services' mentality to 'each game must be continously profitable', hence why things like exclusives are also declining outside of Nintendoland.

I won't be surprised if we see more 'live services' based games as a result, where they hope to sell more micro transactions and season passes.

I also wouldn't be surprised if this is the main reason 343 hasn't been cut off entirely, since Halo is an established franchise with a history when it comes to MP, IIRC there was a report that they're now even reducing support for MCC after microtransactions were rejected.

Purple_Shyguy · May 7, 2024

AxlSt00pid said:
So let me get this straight: Sony closed down Studio Japan and Studio London (with Media Molecule being next according to rumors) because their games didn't sell shit (sadly)

And now Microsoft closed down Tango when Hi-Fi Rush sold very well and had very good reviews? What the fuck?

I was kinda joking that we were near a 2nd videogame market crash but damn it seems that it will indeed happen sooner rather than later if shit like this keeps happening every now and again

It'll be good if that happens. AAA games cost $100,000,000 to $300,000,000 now. It's insane. There's no reason for it. And these companies are going to have to realize that they're gonna have to scale back their shit.

GengarsGhostlyGiggles · May 7, 2024

the end of free money from low interest rates is really crushing everything.
The bill is really coming due for american companies, as other countries embrace BRICS and alternative economic systems.
stagflation or recession coming fast.

Damn I expect more layoffs too.

The Catboy · May 7, 2024

Purple_Shyguy said:
Can we talk about the link between having a AAA game with a black female protagonist and it causing your game studio to go out of business?

Dishonored/Death loop/Redfall
Studio = Dead

Forspoken
Studio = Dead

Saints Row
Studio = Dead

I think the biggest links are that these projects were turned into overhyped and massive budgeted “AAA” games. They spent more money attempting to make games for mass appeal, which created shallow and boring games. The fact that they have the shared black female protagonists is because they all also spent way too much money on DEI groups, who also introduced their own politics and opinions into the games. As a result, we got unfinished games filled to the brim with personal politics and shallow attempts to mass appeal.
Not to mention these games also were filled with cringeworthy dialogue, ugly design choices, and a serious lack of creativity.
That said, I don’t think it’s helpful to keep treating black female leads as the problem. I think people need to blame the reasons behind why this representation has become a concern. That is to say, they aren’t making good characters and like everything else in these games, the black female lead is just another superficial character in a superficial game. They aren’t a character first, they aren’t a person, instead, they are poor example of industry focus groups’ and DEI efforts to push what they want to see. Then crying “sexism” and “racism” when they are characters no one can connect to. Simply put, I don’t think it does much good to focus on the characters as “black female characters” because those shouldn’t be the problem. It’s the fact that they are boring, shallow, safe, and unreliable to anyone, that the only details people can say about they is their appearance and nothing else.

Quore · May 7, 2024

Purple_Shyguy said:
Can we talk about the link between having a AAA game with a black female protagonist and it causing your game studio to go out of business?

Dishonored/Death loop/Redfall
Studio = Dead

Forspoken
Studio = Dead

Saints Row
Studio = Dead

These 3 games were bad but definitely not because of a black-female-protagonist

Post automatically merged: May 7, 2024

The Catboy said:
Not to mention these games also were filled with cringeworthy dialogue, ugly design choices, and a serious lack of creativity.

"Did I just do that?"

BlackZero500 · May 7, 2024

Guys i know you do not want to hear it, but its all about profit. You say games like starfield are shit? Well this does not show in the sales. It sold like fried bacon. Like most of the triple A trash. And your indie games? Yeah they sold well, but at about 20 bucks a piece not 80. So they gotta sell about four times as much to be recognized by the corps.

Just to be honest, i too think the quality of games is rapidply declining but i do not think that this happens more with triple a then with other games. In my opinion about 1 in about 15 to 20 triple A games is good. Thats not a good cut. But i think about only one in a thousand indie games is good. Most indie games are just garbage, not even games at all. Either pushing some agenda without any mentionable gameplay or one good feature that they came up with but nothing else. Dont get me wrong. There are still more good indie games then triple A in a set timespan, but only because for each triple a there are tens of thousands indie games.

So what can be done to fix this situation? Vote with money. Buy good games, do not buy trash, do not boycot good games just because you dont like one tiny feature or even better because "i wont support this publisher". With the path you are walking the last years you all are killing good games.

Naster · May 7, 2024

MS' executives are dumbheads, nothing new here

Robert Newbie · May 7, 2024

It's interesting to hear people's opinions on the modern industry. I felt like games started to really change when the PS3/360 era started. Something about expanding to HD graphics caused a lot of industry changes and growing pains. I felt like things were starting to course correct for the PS4/XB1 generation, but based on this thread, things sound even worse now.

K3Nv2 · May 7, 2024

I feel like what Microsoft is doing here is changing names, they still own IPs except when you see a new game release it'll just say published by Microsoft. So it's just a name at the end of the day there is still hope upcoming sequals can get made.

AkiraKurusu · May 7, 2024

ShadowOne333 said:
known for games such as Hi-Fi Rush

Wasn't that game a surprise smash success? Wow, great job MS. Fucking awful management.

poughstings · May 7, 2024

Can they shutdown linkedin too?

ShadowOne333 · May 7, 2024

AkiraKurusu said:
Wasn't that game a surprise smash success? Wow, great job MS. Fucking awful management.

It was.
It amazed me too that they choose that studio to close down given how that game was such a success.

Viri · May 7, 2024

They made Redfall, and those Dishonored games that go on sale for 99 cents all the damn time. Also, Deathloop was shit.

whitesword7 · May 7, 2024

codezer0 said:
Seriously, what is the brain damage of these executives? Microsoft won't close down 343 despite not having made a good Halo game, ever, but then close down the studio gave us Hi-Fi rush? What in the actual fuck, man?

sadly good game is not equal to good sales…

you can make that dogshit monopoly go mobile game and then makes 2B$

RedColoredStars · May 7, 2024

Only thing I even remotely care about is no more The Evil Within titles. Although I'm pretty sure there wasn't going to be more anyway.

LokeYourLord · May 7, 2024

Purple_Shyguy said:
Can we talk about the link between having a AAA game with a black female protagonist and it causing your game studio to go out of business?

Dishonored/Death loop/Redfall
Studio = Dead

Forspoken
Studio = Dead

Saints Row
Studio = Dead

It's almost as if, and hear me out: Tokenization and forced diversity trigger an adverse reaction from people who can clearly notice you are trying to pander to the woke agenda & DEI, and you ignore your actual paying customers on purpose and then crap on their porch addtionally by lacking a proper script & writing, and also have uninteresting, repetitive and lackluster gameplay? I would've never imagined that forced DEI being shoved down the customer's throat would result in loss of sale, what a shocker.

On a more serious note: If you piss off your fanbase & loyal customers who pay for your existence, and don't make any target market analysis, you are doomed to end up as a meat crayon.

Maximo101 · May 7, 2024

I'll predict that AI will now develop games for companies like Micro$oft and they won't need any programmers. The problem is the AI will only develop games like Terminator over and over...

17hitcombooo · May 7, 2024

god damn they just had to just shut down tango.

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