Xbox layoffs: What’s next for the video game giant?
Layoffs in the video game industry have been commonplace since 2022. estimates show approximately 58,000 positions were cut , externalworldwide.
Much of this is due to excessive hiring and aggressive expansion around 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic led to a massive explosion in player numbers and spending.
During this period, Xbox acquired multiple studios and publishers.
Its biggest acquisitions have included ZeniMax/Bethesda, owner of the hugely popular The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, and Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, which it bought for $69bn (£56bn) in 2023.
Video games remain profitable, but the cost of producing them has skyrocketed.
Cost-of-living crises, customer habits, and rising hardware costs attributed to massive investments in AI have all impacted the market.
When Sharma’s memo arrived in early June, some staff members, including Autumn Mitchell, began to worry.
“People are reading between the lines,” says ZeniMax’s former senior quality assurance tester.
“Does he mean me? Does he mean them? Does he mean my project? Does he mean my studio?”
Mitchell is one of four Xbox developers reported by BBC Newsbeat to have lost their jobs in the latest outages.
All are members of studio unions affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
They say their requests for information were met with “deafening silence” in the weeks between Sharma’s original memo and the final firings.
“What we were left with for about a month was just a lot of uncertainty,” says Goin, who sits on the ZOS bargaining committee made up of union members representing workers at the studio.
Simon Prefontaine, a game designer at Bethesda Game Studios’ Montreal office, says his studio is working on “core franchises” like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls.
“We think a few of us might get shot, we’re probably pretty safe,” he says.
“We did not expect such large layoffs here.
“We were surprised.”
