Support NeoGAF

[IbizaPocholo]

Ex-Halo Infinite developers criticise "incompetent leadership" at Microsoft

Former 343 Industries employees have taken to social media to criticise Microsoft following a round of layoffs.

www.eurogamer.net

Former 343 Industries employees have taken to social media to criticise Microsoft following a round of layoffs.

Yesterday, 10,000 Microsoft employees lost their jobs, including staff at Bethesda Games Studios, Gears of War developer The Coalition, and Halo maker 343 Industries.

Patrick Wren, former senior multiplayer designer on Halo Infinite (and now working at Respawn on Jedi Survivor), was one such former employee who criticised the "incompetent leadership up top".

"The layoffs at 343 shouldn't have happened and Halo Infinite should be in a better state," he said on Twitter. "The reason for both of those things is incompetent leadership up top during Halo Infinite development causing massive stress on those working hard to make Halo the best it can be.

"The people I worked every day with were passionate about Halo and wanted to make something great for the fans. They helped push for a better Halo and got laid off for it.

"Devs still there are working hard on that dream. Look at Forge. Be kind to them during this awful time."

He added in another tweet: "I do want to make sure that I call out how amazing the Multiplayer Leadership team was during development."

Tyler Owens, another former 343 Industries employee now at Respawn working on Apex Legends, tweeted: "As a Halo fan I'm really tired of Microsoft business practices and policies slowly killing the thing I love. Between the contracting policies they abuse for tax incentives and layoffs in the face of gigantic profits/executive bonuses... they set Halo up for failure"

 

[64bitmodels]

yea its confirmed, theres some major mismanagement going on in Xbox. this is the most definitive proof you could find

 

[damiank]

And they want to buy Activision lol.

 

[Gudji]

The awards keep pilling up so I don't believe that.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

We’ve heard devs talking about how MS leadership takes a very hands off approach to game development and Infinite is a clear example of that. All of the management changes, work on it must have been hell.

 

[ADiTAR]

Shocking.

It never crossed my mind that barren years and unremarkable releases are because of bad management. I thought it was the rigger.

 

[Ar¢tos]

We’ve heard devs talking about how MS leadership takes a very hands off approach to game development and Infinite is a clear example of that. All of the management changes, work on it must have been hell.

Funny that the reason Scalebound failed was MS constant meddling then...

 

[MikeM]

Every major corp has incompetent management (can’t fire them? Promote them out).
What I will say though is that MS’ consistent mismanagement of their studios and IP speaks for itself.

 

[Spaceman292]

The awards keep pilling up so I don't believe that.

the fuck are you talking about

 

[PJX]

Not surprised. But Phil is out here busy doing interviews instead of actually doing his job.

 

[drganon]

the fuck are you talking about

Sarcasm I assume.

 

[Pelta88]

"The layoffs at 343 shouldn't have happened and Halo Infinite should be in a better state," he said on Twitter. "The reason for both of those things is incompetent leadership up top during Halo Infinite development causing massive stress on those working hard to make Halo the best it can be.

 

[Gudji]

the fuck are you talking about

Phil Spencer is a award winning machine.

 

[mansoor1980]

its her isnt it?

 

[ReBurn]

the fuck are you talking about

It appears they are talking about awards.

 

[Punished Miku]

I think it's clear that 343 has major issues. Nothing we didn't already know. I actually really enjoyed Infinite though and hope they can figure their shit out. Ross going is a start, but who knows what else is needed at this point.

 

[anthony2690]

yea its confirmed, theres some major mismanagement going on in Xbox. this is the most definitive proof you could find

Reading the above it sounds like the mismanagement is with Bonnie Ross/those in charge of 343 at the time he was there.

Microsoft themselves are pretty hands off right?

Then again I can't keep up, as it frequently changes here whether they are too hands on or off, depending who is commenting and what their agenda is

Anyway I personally really hope the halo infinite the endless still happens, as it something I am genuinely really looking forward too and I have also found myself back into playing multiplayer every other day again

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Funny that the reason Scalebound failed was MS constant meddling then...

That’s not what PG said

Also Scalebound failed because it looked like trash.

 

[OverHeat]

Fuck you 343i

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

I mean..Halo Infinite's development, release and support, all the senior ppl that's leaving Playground, the rumors about Fable being rebooted, them hiring outside studios to help develop Perfect Dark while MS has god knows how many internal development studios themselves...the fact that even with all those studios they can go for over a year and half without releasing a single AAA game.

We know this even without those tweets in the OP.

But Phil Spencer is the man that's changing Xbox ...aaaany day now. (he's CEO since 2014 btw...almost a decade now)

 

[GHG]

The awards keep pilling up so I don't believe that.

Publisher of the year 2021 baby.

 

[Raonak]

Microsoft management has always been horrible. They focus so much on chasing trends. Its a miracle that they even have some good games at all.

 

[Morrie’s wig shop]

Yeah a little common sense will tell you it’s been like this for years.

The thing that irks the shit out of me is that now they’re coming out and saying it was so horrible and the leadership is incompetent, no shit we’ve all known this for about a decade now.

Maybe these people should’ve spoke up during the development of the game.
During the process of creating something out of passion and love to speak up as a cohesive team against your incompetent leaders.

Bunch of fucking pussies wait 2 years after the fact to say something. I hope they find no success in this industry.

 

[reksveks]

all the senior ppl that's leaving Turn 10 (Forza IP),

You mean Playground?

 

[Bonfires Down]

Not sure I believe it when other MS studios are doing fine. Forza Horizon, Ori, Psychonauts, Flight Sim, Age of Empires, Pentiment, Grounded. I’ll agree that Phil should have cracked down on internal 343 mismanagement much sooner though.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

You mean Playground?

Yup. Corrected. Thanks.

 

[Punished Miku]

Phil should have cracked down on internal 343 mismanagement much sooner though.

Probably would have just crippled their broken structure even more. They had to get to the finish line. Now they're firing people and trying to fix it. Not sure what else other than an engine change maybe. Infinite came out in decent shape and was still fun. As far as decisions from Spencer's level, not much else to do mid-development like that. They're making changes now.

 

[Morrie’s wig shop]

Yup. Corrected. Thanks.

You tried

 

[GHG]

Not sure I believe it when other MS studios are doing fine. Forza Horizon, Ori, Psychonauts, Flight Sim, Age of Empires, Pentiment, Grounded. I’ll agree that Phil should have cracked down on internal 343 mismanagement much sooner though.

Most of those games you listed are not from Microsoft's own studios (or weren't when production of the titles mentioned started).

That's the exact pattern that's been discussed several times here. When they partner with external studios there's a much higher chance of the game turning out well.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

If you look at Marvel and DC, this makes A LOT of sense.

There's really no reason Marvel should have more success than DC. DC has a significantly larger fanbase and their characters are more entrenched in society. To top things off Marvel doesn't have control over some of their biggest IP like Spider-Man.

DC made Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and Man of Steel and these movies were bigger than anything Marvel was doing at the time. But Avengers did EXTREMELY well rivaling Dark Knight Rises and outperformed Man of Steel. So DC wanted to quickly ramp up Justice League without having properly built out the characters and their own individual IP. Wonder Woman did 822 million at the box office.... but they saw how Iron Man 3 performed AFTER Avengers and they needed that performance.

They mismanaged Justice League and it performed relatively poorly. They've rushed out everything else since then and it's been downhill since.

Microsoft is very much like DC in that regard. They see how successful Sony has been with 1st party games and they think they can replicate the success, but they haven't cultivated their studios or IP like that. So now it is on every studio and every IP to try to carry an entire year's catalog... That's too much pressure for more junior studios.

Microsoft pushes for these games to come out, they get rushed, and they aren't good. They aren't good and so they end up delaying them so they can get good, they delay them so the expectations increase that they'll be great, which raises the pressure on the studio... meanwhile they hire a bunch of contractors to get these games done rather than hiring mainly of FTEs. These contractors have to get up to speed and slow down companies, causing more stress for FTEs and they're a revolving door.

Microsoft doesn't have a blueprint for successful games and they are forcing a square into a circle as a result. That starts at the top.

 

[Fox Mulder]

I wish their whole studio was shut down.

 

[Black_Stride]

Fuck you 343i

Ex-Halo Infinite developer:

Blames leadership for Infinites short comings.​

Says please dont blame the people still there, they are truly passionate about the project and working their balls off.​

GAF:

Fuck you 343i.​

 

[hinch7]

Not sure I believe it when other MS studios are doing fine. Forza Horizon, Ori, Psychonauts, Flight Sim, Age of Empires, Pentiment, Grounded. I’ll agree that Phil should have cracked down on internal 343 mismanagement much sooner though.

343i should have been under review a long time ago. Halo 4 was a fine departure for the series but everything after was half baked, or a complete shit show at release. The fact that they delayed their flagship game (Halo Infinite) without realising why the game was in poor state just shows the lack of understanding the upper management see's when it comes to producing and publishing quality content. So its no all on 343i. Someone had to greenlight that.

Its up there with the incompetance of Rockstar in releasing the GTA Trilogy as they did.

 

[akaFullmetal]

Whatever they did didn't work. So too much hands on, not enough hands on, whatever it is they did, wasnt quite right during development.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Microsoft has the money, but they don't have the infrastructure to create consistent and multiple hits year in and year out.

This is why in the last few years the focus has shifted to buying Bethesda and now ABK.

In 20 years, Microsoft hasn't enabled/focused on the growth and development of their studios. It was an afterthought.

Similarly, with Sony, MP and GaaS were an afterthought, which is why they were late to the party there. Had Sony been in the mobile/PC space earlier, they probably would have hit that trend as it was happening.

These comments combined with the objective lack of releases combined with the delays of software are an absolute indictment against Microsoft leadership at Xbox and people should probably start to be concerned about Starfield and the state that it is in. After not releasing anything in a calendar year, you would think they would be in a hurry to showcase Starfield to keep people hyped, but they haven't shown anything since it's initial reveal which was underwhelming.

They're in trouble.

 

[Banjo64]

I call out how amazing the Multiplayer Leadership team was during development.

 

[octiny]

Ex 343 employees blaming MS for their incompetence?

Color me shocked /s

 

[Morrie’s wig shop]

If you look at Marvel and DC, this makes A LOT of sense.

There's really no reason Marvel should have more success than DC. DC has a significantly larger fanbase and their characters are more entrenched in society. To top things off Marvel doesn't have control over some of their biggest IP like Spider-Man.

DC made Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and Man of Steel and these movies were bigger than anything Marvel was doing at the time. But Avengers did EXTREMELY well rivaling Dark Knight Rises and outperformed Man of Steel. So DC wanted to quickly ramp up Justice League without having properly built out the characters and their own individual IP. Wonder Woman did 822 million at the box office.... but they saw how Iron Man 3 performed AFTER Avengers and they needed that performance.

They mismanaged Justice League and it performed relatively poorly. They've rushed out everything else since then and it's been downhill since.

Microsoft is very much like DC in that regard. They see how successful Sony has been with 1st party games and they think they can replicate the success, but they haven't cultivated their studios or IP like that. So now it is on every studio and every IP to try to carry an entire year's catalog... That's too much pressure for more junior studios.

Microsoft pushes for these games to come out, they get rushed, and they aren't good. They aren't good and so they end up delaying them so they can get good, they delay them so the expectations increase that they'll be great, which raises the pressure on the studio... meanwhile they hire a bunch of contractors to get these games done rather than hiring mainly of FTEs. These contractors have to get up to speed and slow down companies, causing more stress for FTEs and they're a revolving door.

Microsoft doesn't have a blueprint for successful games and they are forcing a square into a circle as a result. That starts at the top.

The whole DC vs Marvel IN MY OPINION has to do with the kids. Even as a kid in the 80s I always felt marvel was more for the kids and DC is more adult oriented.
Fast forward to the movies. This Marvel continuation story has been going on for over 10 years now.
So all you kids that started to watch these movies in 2010 and you were 10 (you know who you are on this forum) now your 23 and of course you’ve been following the whole storyline for the past 12 years plus the writing is easy and cohesive for younger people to follow along with. Remember all my opinion.

As for the leadership at Microsoft your spot on success always starts from the top.

 

[anthony2690]

Funny that the reason Scalebound failed was MS constant meddling then...

How many times are people going to spread this misinformation?

It takes just a little bit of googling to see that Platinum games said it is their own fault.

And same with that they themselves always pitched it as a multiplayer game to Microsoft.

(I would link the game producers tweets, but they are now protected and can not be viewed by myself to link)

But maybe an article out there out has screenshots.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

343i should have been under review a long time ago. Halo 4 was a fine departure for the series but everything after was half baked, or a complete shit show at release. The fact that they delayed their flagship game (Halo Infinite) without realising why the game was in poor state just shows the lack of understanding the upper management see's when it comes to producing and publishing quality content. So its no all on 343i. Someone had to greenlight that.

Its up there with the incompetance of Rockstar in releasing the GTA Trilogy as they did.

Obviously, PlayStation Studios falls under SIE, but it's still a subsidiary. As such there's at least a bit of separation of priorities against PS5 sales and PlayStation Studios software sales. You have Jim Ryan running the business, but you have Herman Hulst running the software studios. Herman reports to Jim, but his entire focus is software.

The pressure to have to bolster hardware sales is immense. Every game they make has to be a GOTY candidate.

When Insomniac made Rift Apart and Miles Morales... I don't think they thought they were going to win GOTY. Same goes for Demon's Souls remake and Returnal.

They just put out games.

 

[intheinbetween]

343i should’ve been dismantled after Halo 4 or Halo 5 imo

 

[Mibu no ookami]

The whole DC vs Marvel IN MY OPINION has to do with the kids. Even as a kid in the 80s I always felt marvel was more for the kids and DC is more adult oriented.
Fast forward to the movies. This Marvel continuation story has been going on for over 10 years now.
So all you kids that started to watch these movies in 2010 and you were 10 (you know who you are on this forum) now your 23 and of course you’ve been following the whole storyline for the past 12 years plus the writing is easy and cohesive for younger people to follow along with. Remember all my opinion.

As for the leadership at Microsoft your spot on success always starts from the top.

I think that is very true, but if you look at Batman the animated series and the superman and justice league animated series, I feel they made huge strides with kids. Teen Titans and Titans Go. I think they were probably more popular than X-Men and Spider-Man that kind of faded after the early 90s.

I think DC failed to capitalize on the popularity of the dark knight trilogy and should have done everything they could to tie Man of Steel to Christian Bale's batman. This would have been a bigger hit than any Avengers movie, but instead they rebooted batman without ever making a batman movie with Ben Affleck (was in development) and RUSHED Justice League through. But you look at their individual projects and they're just as popular if not more so than Marvel movies. Look at The Batman and Joker. Joker itself was over a billion in gross. Aquaman sucked and was 1.1 billion.

The fans are there and the potential is there, it's purely mismanaged. If they did a flashpoint movie that combined the batman actors like they did for Spider-Man... that movie would have made 1.5 billion dollars... easily... A man of steel 2 with henry cavill could have made 1.2 billion or more.

The real issues have been dawn of justice, justice league, wonder woman 1984, and the poor timing/streaming of The Batman. All of these underperformed for good reasons.

 

[6502]

MS did set Halo up for failure , by giving the ip to 343.

 

[Dynasty8]

Can someone explain the whole "contracting policies they abuse for tax incentives"?

I remember reading something a couple years back on this but never fully understood what it means.

 

[Saber]

Thats how Phil win awards I guess.

 

[hinch7]

Obviously, PlayStation Studios falls under SIE, but it's still a subsidiary. As such there's at least a bit of separation of priorities against PS5 sales and PlayStation Studios software sales. You have Jim Ryan running the business, but you have Herman Hulst running the software studios. Herman reports to Jim, but his entire focus is software.

The pressure to have to bolster hardware sales is immense. Every game they make has to be a GOTY candidate.

When Insomniac made Rift Apart and Miles Morales... I don't think they thought they were going to win GOTY. Same goes for Demon's Souls remake and Returnal.

They just put out games.

I don't know the structure for XGS but I would assume there would be several auditors and directors looking over progress of their projects.

Whatever the case, Halo as a whole has been handled quite poorly since the departure of Bungie.

 

[Roufianos]

Reading the above it sounds like the mismanagement is with Bonnie Ross/those in charge of 343 at the time he was there.

Microsoft themselves are pretty hands off right?

Then again I can't keep up, as it frequently changes here whether they are too hands on or off, depending who is commenting and what their agenda is

Anyway I personally really hope the halo infinite the endless still happens, as it something I am genuinely really looking forward too and I have also found myself back into playing multiplayer every other day again

It is strange that the article puts the word 'Microsoft' into the former dev's mouth. I mean, he could well be on about Phil and Co but could also be aimed at Bonnie Ross.

 

[anthony2690]

It is strange that the article puts the word 'Microsoft' into the former dev's mouth. I mean, he could well be on about Phil and Co but could also be aimed at Bonnie Ross.

Up top off halo infinite during development would be Bonnie Ross and whoever else was in charge with her I would assume?

I guess saying Microsoft will get clicks currently as 10k people are getting fired

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

MS's track record strikes again.

what week, what a week.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I don't know the structure for XGS but I would assume there would be at least several auditors and directors looking over progress of their projects.

Whatever the case, Halo as a whole has been handled quite poorly since the departure of Bungie.

Matt Booty is basically the equivalent to Herman Hulst, but the structure isn't conducive to success. They're too aligned with the hardware strategy, which is what places enormous downward pressure on the studios.

Do you notice that Sony left E3 and they don't force out state of plays or showcases anymore and their games are still selling like gangbusters and their hardware is still selling like gangbusters. Maybe we're frustrated because we don't get as much hype through the year, but there is significantly less pressure on studios now and they can focus on making games.

Letting Bungie go was the first mismanagement. Rare has been mismanaged historically, though they've had some recent success. The relationship with Epic was mismanaged. All of their IP outside of Forza have been mismanaged. Microsoft is the common link across all of these things. They've never had good leadership and Phil Spencer basically said it himself, he was the last guy on the ship at Xbox fighting to keep the brand alive. Everyone else there has left and they haven't developed a pipeline for succession, something Sony has alway done.

Like it or not, and I know many won't but decent chance that Neil Druckmann is the next head of PlayStation Studios. Herman Hulst is probably the next SIE president.