Compulsion Games and Undead Labs are also reported to be hit with Xbox layoffs

Shouldn't be a surprise.

South of Midnight was a flop. Like pretty much every Xbox release this gen.

If today's news doesn't slap people back into reality, I don't know what will.🤷🏾‍♂️
 
What the hell is Undead Labs even doing? The third game was announced in 2020 and it's not some incredibly complex idea. Plus you already have two SoD games with many gameplay mechanics working and not needing a revolution.

Seems like another case of lack of oversight over projects in development, checking if they're hitting milestones.
 
Killjoy-NL said:
Shouldn't be a surprise.

South of Midnight was a flop. Like pretty much every Xbox release this gen.

If today's news doesn't slap people back into reality, I don't know what will.🤷🏾‍♂️
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Define "flop", in the context of a small AA game where no one thought it would sell, as it was meant to be a nice title to add to the Game Pass catalog. Xbox's goal isn't to sell games to Xbox players, it's to get you to join Game Pass and want to pay for Ultimate every month. That's the business model.

If every game Xbox greenlit for development had a goal to sell well and make a lot of money off individual sales, basically all of their studios would be immediately closed. The whole strategy was buy up a lot of studios that make cool, interesting games that don't cost a lot of money to run, and they'll add a lot of ongoing value to the Game Pass lineup, thus driving up subscription numbers.
 
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Dr. Wilkinson said:
Define "flop", in the context of a small AA game where no one thought it would sell, as it was meant to be a nice title to add to the Game Pass catalog. Xbox's goal isn't to sell games to Xbox players, it's to get you to join Game Pass and want to pay for Ultimate every month. That's the business model.
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That's part of it, but that's definitely not the main business model.

In Phil Spencer's own words: "Game Pass as an overall part of our content and services revenue is probably 15 percent I don't think it gets bigger than that. I think the overall revenue grows so 15 percent of a bigger number, but we don't have this future where I think 50–70 percent of our revenue comes from subscriptions."

A service that is only responsible for 10-15% of the revenue and is expected to stay at that level in the future as well cannot be the main business model, where the other model is bringing in 85-90% of the revenue.
 
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Dr. Wilkinson said:
No, you're just not understanding my point. That's fine. Lots of people here don't seem to understand nuance and context.
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We do.

But fact is, GamePass is a dead end. It hit its plateau a few years ago and the best Xbox can do is damage control and do whatever it can to try and retain subs.

It's truly the dumbest business-model they could've came up with.
 
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Heisenberg007 said:
That's part of it, but that's definitely not the main business model.

In Phil Spencer's own words: "Game Pass as an overall part of our content and services revenue is probably 15 percent I don't think it gets bigger than that. I think the overall revenue grows so 15 percent of a bigger number, but we don't have this future where I think 50–70 percent of our revenue comes from subscriptions."

A service that is only responsible for 10-15% of the revenue and is expected to stay at that level in the future as well cannot be the main business model, where the other model is bringing in 85-90% of the revenue.
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Well that quote is likely when it dawned on them after years of trying, when they finally realized that Game Pass would never become the Netflix of Gaming, and replace the traditional business model. They had to remove the metric from Satya's annual bonus goals so he didn't take a hit from Xbox missing it's target every year. But in the 2019 Honeymoon era of constant acquisitions, that was their vision.

Many of these games were not greenlit because they were expected to sell millions of copies. The studios themselves never had a history of that. Xbox bought them because they needed revenue to stay open, have the safety net of Xbox, and their unique/ interesting games would add a lot of value to the Game Pass catalog. Not necessarily that the studios themselves would be massive moneymakers. They weren't then, they aren't now. Outside of Bethesda and ABK.

There are no good answers here. What Xbox has been doing since 2013 hasn't worked, and it's continuing to not work. And with all the money spent on acquisitions, they are now under the intense microscope of Microsoft corporate in a way they never have been before. The ABK acquisition in particular was in hindsight a huge mistake. I'm sure most people at all these studios would agree with that.
 
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Dr. Wilkinson said:
Well that quote is likely when it dawned on them after years of trying, when they finally realized that Game Pass would never become the Netflix of Gaming, and replace the traditional business model. They had to remove the metric from Satya's annual bonus goals so he didn't take a hit from Xbox missing it's target every year. But in the 2019 Honeymoon era of constant acquisitions, that was their vision.

Many of these games were not greenlit because they were expected to sell millions of copies. The studios themselves never had a history of that. Xbox bought them because they needed revenue to stay open, have the safety net of Xbox, and their unique/ interesting games would add a lot of value to the Game Pass catalog. Not necessarily that the studios themselves would be massive moneymakers. They weren't then, they aren't now. Outside of Bethesda and ABK.

There are no good answers here. What Xbox has been doing since 2013 hasn't worked, and it's continuing to not work. And with all the money spent on acquisitions, they are now under the intense microscope of Microsoft corporate in a way they never have been before. The ABK acquisition in particular was in hindsight a huge mistake. I'm sure most people at all these studios would agree with that.
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I agree with that.

There was a time when they wanted to make GP their main model and thought it would take over the traditional business model. It didn't turn out to be the case, however.

But I doubt they'd measure the success (or lack thereof) of games publishing today in that old context. They'd still want to get a positive ROI on those games. I think that's what led to the Turn-10 downfall as well.
 
I really liked State of Decay, the 2nd was not bad either, became a bit by the numbers a few hours in..

The 3rd looked like it might have had the old MS brand of DEI creeping in going by the trailers, so not really that fussed 🤷‍♂️
 
Fucking Microsoft bought developers just for the sake of it. They have bought mid developers since day one, and they made them even more mediocre. From the fucking power points where they listed and dev logos were in there none of them have delivered anything truly groundbreaking. Only turds, but lots of people championed the turds, they smell so good they said, they are so nutritious they said, we are eating good boisssss.

All these will be closed. In no time.
Phil said after ABK purchase that they were not done with the buyouts. I guess they are not done with the firings and studios closures..
 
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If I worked for a MS owned studio that can't give MS the big numbers they are dying for, I'd be looking for a new job now. You'd be able to tell that from the type of game your studio is making.
 
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Matsuchezz said:
Fucking Microsoft bought developers just for the sake of it. They have bought mid developers since day one, and they made them even more mediocre.
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Comes as no surprise to me having watched how they fucked up FASA Studio. After the success of MechAssault, Crimson Skies, and MechAssault 2 they were like "hey, now do this class based, always online, crossplay FPS based on an IP that most people know as either an isometric RPG or the original pen and paper RPG" (Shadowrun).

Then when Shadowrun flopped, Xbox were like "Oh well, FASA sucks, cut 'em."
 
Nydius said:
Comes as no surprise to me having watched how they fucked up FASA Studio. After the success of MechAssault, Crimson Skies, and MechAssault 2 they were like "hey, now do this class based, always online, crossplay FPS based on an IP that most people know as either an isometric RPG or the original pen and paper RPG" (Shadowrun).

Then when Shadowrun flopped, Xbox were like "Oh well, FASA sucks, cut 'em."
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omg fasa and psygnosis and bullfrog were my heroes from that period and they've all gone away. Those would have been some very long streaks if they were still around, though.
 
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