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[OZ9000]

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"

Spend less time updating your twitter pronouns and more on the game and perhaps you might have delivered a better product.

 

[DarkMage619]

Phil Spencer should have been ousted for launching a console that was so popular you couldn't buy it on store shelves for 2+ years?

Me thinks first party software just a wee bit overrated yeah?

Xbox was never reliant on first party like Sony and Nintendo are. The loudest voices calling for Phil's ouster aren't Xbox customers.

 

[Damian black]

Xbox was never reliant on first party like Sony and Nintendo are. The loudest voices calling for Phil's ouster aren't Xbox customers.

First party games are literally what made the first xbox relevant lol, while sony pretty much was going on auto pilot with ps2, thanks to default 3rd party exclusives.
What planet are you living on?

 

[demigod]

Thats nice, wheres perfect dark which was announced more than 3 years ago, where is hell blade that was announced over 3 years ago. Where is avowed that was announced almost 3 years ago, where is everwild that was announced over 3 years ago, where is state of decay 3 that was announced almost 3 years ago?

Its just hard for me to feel any confidence in their line up when their games are announced 6 years before they are released or cancelled. Add that most of their announced titles have rumors of development issues and its just hard to feel good about the brand right now

Here's your Perfect Dark.

 

[Knightime_X]

Management at Microsoft or at 343?
Title is kinda click baity.

 

[qwertz12345]

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.

I'm one of the "few" people who wants Snyder to come back and be given complete creative control.

I will never blame Snyder for how his DC movies turned out... MoS was awesome. JL was great too.

 

[systemr123]

Management at Microsoft or at 343?
Title is kinda click baity.

 

[Boneless]

What else is new, there are always people on the frontlines shitting on leadership, just like civilians shitting on their political leaders. Top short sighted to even begin the complexities of the bigger picture.

 

[DarkMage619]

First party games are literally what made the first xbox relevant lol, while sony pretty much was going on auto pilot with ps2, thanks to default 3rd party exclusives.
What planet are you living on?

Outside of Halo which is currently in the news now and it isn't great, MS has never been reliant on their first party. The original Xbox had Bloodwake, Azurik and Fusion Frenzy? You can't be seriously thinking those titles were moving Xboxes. Xbox is far more reliant on 3rd party games. Now more than ever.

 

[Wimbledon]

It just comes down to how much they value internal development , you can buy all the studios you want. MS has never been good at managing studios or cultivating any of the talents in said studios.

They don't take risk, they clearly want a service model that makes them more money than actually making great games that set a standard in this industry.

I get it the gaming division isn't really their focus probably doesn't make as much money as their other divisions. But this idea that ill just buys everything and then it just works is just silly.

I would be perfectly fine with Microsoft selling their gaming division or their IP's to a more reputable publisher.

 

[Lord Panda]

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

I disliked both those games, but MS should have seriously reconsidered 343i's stewardship of Halo right after the (ongoing) debacle that was The Master Chief Collection. That fiasco went on for years and spanning consecutive console generations and platforms (PC).

MCC became a mockery of the Halo legacy, instead of being the ultimate love letter compilation to Halo.

 

[LQX]

MS seems like one of those companies that thinks the more hands off they are the better results they will get but it does not seem to be working all that great.

 

[Nickolaidas]

I wonder if Game Pass is to blame for those failures, in the same way that the Netflix model caused more and more bad shows to be created because it's not about making 'art' anymore, but it's about creating content.

From the moment you create a subscription model, you need to give constant content to the customer in order to convince him he needs to stay subscribed each month. And from the moment you do that, you create multiple deadlines that may overwhelm your staff, and as a result the quality of said content suffers. Sure, it may as well be head management that can't tell a blaster from a katana, but ever since streaming services took over in tv and gaming, all those products have gone downhill, with just a few exceptions.

I understand and applaud the massive pros the Game Pass model has, but if it hurts the quality of the content, I think the price is too high. And I'm not referring to the subscription fee.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Outside of Halo

Lol yes, the title that put Xbox on the map in the first place. Gotta exclude that which goes against your narrative.

 

[Iced Arcade]

Glad to see devs no longer on the payroll calling MS trash because that’s what they are. Creatives go there to die a slow death.

Jesus

 

[Mibu no ookami]

I wonder if Game Pass is to blame for those failures, in the same way that the Netflix model caused more and more bad shows to be created because it's not about making 'art' anymore, but it's about creating content.

From the moment you create a subscription model, you need to give constant content to the customer in order to convince him he needs to stay subscribed each month. And from the moment you do that, you create multiple deadlines that may overwhelm your staff, and as a result the quality of said content suffers. Sure, it may as well be head management that can't tell a blaster from a katana, but ever since streaming services took over in tv and gaming, all those products have gone downhill, with just a few exceptions.

I understand and applaud the massive pros the Game Pass model has, but if it hurts the quality of the content, I think the price is too high. And I'm not referring to the subscription fee.

I think it's a bit far-fetched to say Netflix has caused more and more bad tv shows to be created. There were always bad tv shows and Netflix's hit rate is much higher than most network tv shows, and the variety of the content is significantly better too.

That being said, the subscription model likely will not work for AAA gaming. To avoid pushing broken games, you need an overabundance of titles. All of which come at a price. That price will get higher and higher.

I would not be surprised if by the end of the year, GamePass is 15 dollars per month, which is a change from 120 dollars a year to 180, especially ahead of Starfield coming out.

That would be 5.4 billion in annual revenue compared with 3.6 billion in annual revenue, assuming 30 million subscribers all paying full price.

Now let's say starfield is a certified hit and you add an extra 5 million subs... 6.3 billion in revenue. These are the kind of numbers Microsoft is looking for in order to stay ahead of content costs.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

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.

Not really how this works, they wouldn't be "auditors" you have project managers and project leads and team leads, but that doesn't mean anything really. Each project and each team is different.

Does the team have enough staff and enough experience to complete a project and complete well and on time? This is particularly difficult when you're dealing with contractors who need to be brought upto speed and then leave before the overall project is over. If a project becomes derailed, it can have lingering effects.

What happens when projects/tasks become delayed? Maybe overarching projects become delayed and the QA queue becomes overloaded. Meaning you're not catching bugs fast enough and when the bugs have to go back, but now staff have left, you might need to spend even more time on a project.

Microsoft's vendor policy has a huge impact on how these projects can be managed and executed which in effect has a huge impact on these games. Especially as these games get larger and larger.

When you look at Japanese companies so many of them have fallen behind on AAA development, but so has Microsoft.

You look at Naughty Dog and they have similar issues, but they still have enough core staff to produce top flight games. That being said their turnover is impacting them, which is why you see them not announcing games in advance anymore, so that they can avoid crunch and hopefully retain employees.

The median tenure at Naughty Dog according to LinkedIn is 2.1 years... That is terrible.

Compare that to Santa Monica* who has 3.1 years (a lot of probably temp staff left after ragnarok was completed which will drive this number up)

Guerrilla is 4.3 years.

Bioware is 6.3 years...

Attrition at AAA studios is a huge problem.

 

[mckmas8808]

And they want to buy Activision lol.

It'll ONLY get worse if they are allowed to buy Activision. MS better hope governments block the Activision purchase.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Xbox was never reliant on first party like Sony and Nintendo are.

What revisionist bullshit.

Shill harder.

 

[Punished Miku]

What revisionist bullshit.

Shill harder.

• Xbox 1 barely had first party of note aside from Halo. It was known for having the best multiplat games, and was substantially better than PS2.
• 360 was known as the best place to play multi-plat, and had the Call of Duty marketing deal. It had Halo / Gears / Forza.
• Xbox One bombed. Halo / Gears / Forza, plus some other smaller stuff.
• Xbox Series so far is coasting on Gamepass.

Sony honestly never had major 1st party presence in my opinion until PS4. They do have some hits, but the main thing that always drove PS was third party content. Tons of it.

Nintendo has always been totally reliant on 1st party.

What he said was pretty accurate, with the exception of Sony relying on first party not being true for PS1 and PS2, which coasted on Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Devil May Cry, pretty much all huge third party stuff. Even Crash was not owned by them.

 

[DeepEnigma]

• Xbox 1 barely had first party of note aside from Halo. It was known for having the best multiplat games, and was substantially better than PS2.
• 360 was known as the best place to play multi-plat, and had the Call of Duty marketing deal. It had Halo / Gears / Forza.
• Xbox One bombed. Halo / Gears / Forza, plus some other smaller stuff.
• Xbox Series so far is coasting on Gamepass.

Sony honestly never had major 1st party presence in my opinion until PS4. They do have some hits, but the main thing that always drove PS was third party content. Tons of it.

Nintendo has always been totally reliant on 1st party.

What he said was pretty accurate, with the exception of Sony relying on first party not being true for PS1 and PS2, which coasted on Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Devil May Cry, pretty much all huge third party stuff. Even Crash was not owned by them.

Ok.

 

[levyjl1988]

I'm glad that 343i fired off all the diverse people to fit a quota and maybe they can hire actual people with talent and passion for the franchise.
and it sucks that my thread: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-...ate-halo-infinite-rip-halo-franchise.1645703/
was closed because I saw this coming a mile away and mods dismissed my vocal concern and here we are.

 

[Topher]

I'm glad that 343i fired off all the diverse people to fit a quota and maybe they can hire actual people with talent and passion for the franchise.

Edit:

and here we are

And there you went.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Always easy to criticize management, since management almost always takes the high road and doesn't publicly blast employees for a shit job.

Put it this way. Out of all the bad games out there, is everyone going to blame management 100% of the time?

 

[Topher]

Always easy to criticize management, since management almost always takes the high road and doesn't publicly blast employees for a shit job.

Put it this way. Out of all the bad games out there, is everyone going to blame management 100% of the time?

Any manager who would publicly blast their employees is a shit manager. That isn't about taking the high road. That is simply being competent at being a manager.

When you have a game the size and popularity of Halo, blaming the employees doesn't make any sense at all. The vast majority of employees are simply doing what they are instructed to do from their leads. If an employee at Microsoft isn't doing their job, they get fired and replaced. If not, whose fault is that? Yep. Management.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Any manager who would publicly blast their employees is a shit manager. That isn't about taking the high road. That is simply being competent at being a manager.

When you have a game the size and popularity of Halo, blaming the employees doesn't make any sense at all. The vast majority of employees are simply doing what they are instructed to do from their leads. If an employee at Microsoft isn't doing their job, they get fired and replaced. If not, whose fault is that? Yep. Management.

If a lot of people are getting fired or replaced bogging down the process, that's typically an employee issue not a boss issue. People can blame bosses for hiring them, but they hire who they think is the best for the job based on their resume and interview. Some people can bullshit a good image getting hired.

Out of all the people I've known fired, it's been either crap employees who do a bad job or simply a company downsizing to save money where even some good people are cut.

But in normal or good times, I have never seen a person fired for the hell of it even though they did a good job and had a good attitude with everyone.

Being instructed what to do by leads is bad if the boss is expecting people to do wonders beyond their capabilities. So your assuming what the manager's are asking are bad. The employees can be bad too.

I'll give you a perfect example. In my finance roll, it's pretty darn expected we can all do analysis, numbers, database work and use Excel and SAP well. All veteran finance people know this stuff (with exception of SAP if their company never used it, but in it's place another program). But if you got 35 year old finance vets asked to do pretty normal tasks and it takes them forever or are wrong when me and my close coworker can do it in half an hour, how can that be the bosses fault?

 

[PendekarRajawali]

 

[Topher]

If a lot of people are getting fired or replaced bogging down the process, that's typically an employee issue not a boss issue. People can blame bosses for hiring them, but they hire who they think is the best for the job based on their resume and interview. Some people can bullshit a good image getting hired.

Out of all the people I've known fired, it's been either crap employees who do a bad job or simply a company downsizing to save money where even some good people are cut.

But in normal or good times, I have never seen a person fired for the hell of it even though they did a good job and had a good attitude with everyone.

Being instructed what to do by leads is bad if the boss is expecting people to do wonders beyond their capabilities. So your assuming what the manager's are asking are bad. The employees can be bad too.

I'll give you a perfect example. In my finance roll, it's pretty darn expected we can all do analysis, numbers, database work and use Excel and SAP well. All veteran finance people know this stuff (with exception of SAP if their company never used it, but in it's place another program). But if you got 35 year old finance vets asked to do pretty normal tasks and it takes them forever or are wrong when me and my close coworker can do it in half an hour, how can that be the bosses fault?

Again, if a guy sucks at his job then the manager needs to address the issue and get that employee to do a better job or replace them. You act as if the manager is the victim of an underperforming employee. No. The manager is underperforming if performance issues are not addressed. In your situation, you've got three resources doing a good job and a third not performing at a level that is expected. So if the entire department suffers because of that guy and that problem isn't addressed then yeah, that's piss-poor management.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Again, if a guy sucks at his job then the manager needs to address the issue and get that employee to do a better job or replace them. You act as if the manager is the victim of an underperforming employee. No. The manager is underperforming if performance issues are not addressed. In your situation, you've got three resources doing a good job and a third not performing at a level that is expected. So if the entire department suffers because of that guy and that problem isn't addressed then yeah, that's piss-poor management.

It’s a Halo game that somehow took 6 years to make and at year 5 it was Craig.

It’s not like 343 is asked to make Grand Theft Auto 6.

Older Halo games churned out every 2-3 years and we’re solid.

Like all management, there’s direction and then flexibility to get the job done. I don’t think even game making is so strict like it’s a job being a teacher and checking a kids homework to the letter. As long as what is progressing seems good it’ll get green lit. Since it took 6 years there’s likely two main reasons. Shit employees who can’t do it well. Or shit managers bumbling around and mandating starting over again and again. A Halo game shouldn’t take 6 years to make.

I’ll take the former as a more likely reason and bigger influence.

 

[Topher]

It’s a Halo game that somehow took 6 years to make and at year 5 it was Craig.

It’s not like 343 is asked to make Grand Theft Auto 6.

Older Halo games churned out every 2-3 years and we’re solid.

Like all management, there’s direction and then flexibility to get the job done. I don’t think even game making is so strict like it’s a job being a teacher and checking a kids homework to the letter. As long as what is progressing seems good it’ll get green lit. Since it took 6 years there’s likely two main reasons. Shit employees who can’t do it well. Or shit managers bumbling around and mandating starting over again and again. A Halo game shouldn’t take 6 years to make.

I’ll take the former as a more likely reason and bigger influence.

Are shit employees supposed to fire themselves?

 

[geary]

What do you consider management? CEx? VPs? Directors? Middle management? Teal leads? What management is at fault here? Do you think the CEO is rebooting the game because an area or a feature is not liked by them? Or the team leads and feature leads are not giving good instructions? Or the coders or artists who dont know how to implement what the project leads want and need to write and rewrite features again and again? And what the solution the? Fire them? How log will it take to find replacements? Does the middle management does not know how to keep a team toghether and give good instructions and feedback? Fire them? How easy is again to tind replacement and bring them up to speed with the project?

I think is easier to throw the word management sucks and call it a day, no?

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Are shit employees supposed to fire themselves?

That’s what bosses are for. unless a company is in dire need to save money or in some restructuring/redundancy situation, a boss won’t fire you if you’re a good worker with a good attitude.

We can agree to disagree.

But unless it can be proven management dropped the ball making employees spin their wheels for 6 years, it’s not like 343 didn’t have the time , budget or number of people to work on the game. By the looks of it even leading up to the year 5 promo video it looked like crap.

And I dont see high end 343 execs or Phil Spencer sitting there all day leading the charge coding or drawing Craig assets.

Put it this way. As much crap Forspoken has got, I think that game looks better than the Craig video.

 

[Moses85]

He has a name

 

[BeardGawd]

Spend less time updating your twitter pronouns and more on the game and perhaps you might have delivered a better product.

As much as I agree with you I'm pretty sure this is pushed by MS and other big corporations. It's good PR for them to be progressive and inclusive.

 

[Topher]

That’s what bosses are for. unless a company is in dire need to save money or in some restructuring/redundancy situation, a boss won’t fire you if you’re a good worker with a good attitude.

We can agree to disagree.

But unless it can be proven management dropped the ball making employees spin their wheels for 6 years, it’s not like 343 didn’t have the time , budget or number of people to work on the game. By the looks of it even leading up to the year 5 promo video it looked like crap.

And I dont see high end 343 execs or Phil Spencer sitting there all day leading the charge coding or drawing Craig assets.

No, the people in charge at 343 are the ones who approved those "Craig assets" when they should have been rejecting them. At the end of the day, it is on the guys in charge to say "yeah, this is what we want" or "no, this isn't it". Frankly, it sounds like the management at 343 has more of an attitude of "meh......good enough".

 

[StreetsofBeige]

No, the people in charge at 343 are the ones who approved those "Craig assets" when they should have been rejecting them. At the end of the day, it is on the guys in charge to say "yeah, this is what we want" or "no, this isn't it". Frankly, it sounds like the management at 343 has more of an attitude of "meh......good enough".

It was already 5 years since Halo 5. They can’t show nothing forever.

it goes to show management had nothing else better to promote in 5 years of development.

As I said before I pin this on workers who couldn’t do the job. What happened to that awesome slipstream engine or whatever it’s called? I don’t think the typical VP is sitting at a desk making it.

But if it can be proven management wasted everyone’s time for 6 years where workers are getting bad advice or needing to restart stuff over and over again (you never know maybe Halo Inf really only had 2 or 3 years of dev time as the first bunch of years were tossed in the garbage) then I can see bosses being unorganized bums.

 

[DarkMage619]

Lol yes, the title that put Xbox on the map in the first place. Gotta exclude that which goes against your narrative.

And what part of the map is Halo putting Xbox on now? The fact is that Xbox isn't reliant on their first party games and that remains true. The latest NPD shows numerous first party Nintendo games, numerous first party PlayStation and Xbox listing had tons of third party games.

 

[azertydu91]

No, the people in charge at 343 are the ones who approved those "Craig assets" when they should have been rejecting them. At the end of the day, it is on the guys in charge to say "yeah, this is what we want" or "no, this isn't it". Frankly, it sounds like the management at 343 has more of an attitude of "meh......good enough".

 

[Topher]

It was already 5 years since Halo 5. They can’t show nothing forever.

it goes to show management had nothing else better to promote in 5 years of development.

As I said before I pin this on workers who couldn’t do the job. What happened to that awesome slipstream engine or whatever it’s called? I don’t think the typical VP is sitting at a desk making it.

But if it can be proven management wasted everyone’s time for 6 years where workers are getting bad advice or needing to restart stuff over and over again (you never know maybe Halo Inf really only had 2 or 3 years of dev time as the first bunch of years were tossed in the garbage) then I can see bosses being unorganized bums.

Nothing is going to be proven either way except for individual accounts like the guy in the OP pointing directly at the leadership's incompetence. And again, pointing at employees doesn't make any sense. Much more likely that the folks in charge have misled than a huge chunk of employees just suck so bad at their job.