Seems to be part of Xbox’s restructuring plan.
Layoffs are never good and it’s a double edged sword.
One side Xbox is attempting to recapture that magic from the OG and 360 era and focusing on pumping out games from their major IPs On the other side lay offs and projects being canceled.
atleast Project Fantasy is still being committed to.
I’ve given Xbox a lot of leeway in the past few years but they just do not know what. the. hell. they are doing.
And when you have no effective business strategy, the strategy always becomes “cut the fat.” So Microsoft is doing that left, right, and center.
General statements: I like IOI and the fantasy genre. I feel bad for the devs and support teams who will suffer from Big Business Daddy decisions. I would love to see what this game is about. As of this message I continue to pay for the middle Xbox Gamepass tier. I am frustrated with and disappointed in Xbox. (They also might cancel the Blade game… plus kill Ninja Theory and Double Fine…)
Oh man, this means I am not getting a Psychonauts 3 I guess.
Never say never but no, probably not one funded by Microsoft.
Still more likely than a third entry in the modern Deus Ex games…
To be fair the first Psychonauts was negligibly funded by Microsoft, there were a lot of times Michaelsoft dicked around Double Fine during development. At one point I think they had to have Will Wright (that Will Wright) fund the game after MS fired the guy who originally supported Psychonauts as a console mover for Xbox which caused them to drop their support for the game.
I said it earlier on Discord, but the Xbox meltdown makes me soooo glad that a few years ago when they were sniffing around and had an interest in acquiring IOI - they were told to fuck off and it never went anywhere.
As much as this news about Project Fantasy sucks - I would happily take this over what could’ve been.
That’s the bit I understood. I just did not understand your “what if?” examples.
As @schatenjager has pointed out, it is very possible their wording was deliberate because it was out of their control due to previous agreements, which is very possible, and actually, an idea I fully subscribe to, as it makes sense.
The examples give situations where ending a project is something normal that can happen and how it is then not a good idea to point fingers. What exactly confuses you?
Yeah, but we don’t know how much money they’ve put into it. I’m certain it was probably more than they’ve put into H3.
Probably but how much of it was that sweet, sweet Satya money and how much of that was from the IO Kroner kitty?
I believe what Urben is saying is that it would be unprofessional of IO to assign blame, especially given that ever-changing economic circumstances cause companies to enter into and leave partnerships all the time once it’s no longer to their advantage.
But that you believe the release should’ve named the anonymous partner who left the deal, because their name is conspicuous by its absence and could give the impression they’re favouring partner over their own soon-to-be-unemployed employees.
Schatenjager is right there may be a legal dimension to this, but also a PR one. If IO really had called out Microsoft, it could’ve backfired completely. Instead of being viewed as standing up for their employees and naming the culprit, it could have been interpreted as misusing a somber statement about layoffs to take a jab at Microsoft and avoid any blame at all. I know I wouldn’t want my layoff announcement to contain the scoring of a PR point
Except it already does that, no matter how you look at it. Don’t name them? Then you’re protecting themselves and microsoft, undercutting the sincerity of the message. Do name them? You’re making it political and it may backfire (citation needed), undercutting the message’s sincerity.
It’s a no-win situation for anyone, apparently. But then again, this is just a thought experiment, and nobody knows either way.
Others have already explained this clearly, but there’s really no debate here.
This is not a real risk. The whole point of the statement is to protect IO as a company. That goes without saying. And this statement doesn’t “protect” Microsoft. It’s an open secret who the “external partner” is, and the statement pretty much confirms it’s the breakdown of the deal with this company that’s going to cause cutbacks. That’s not insincere. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Regardless, why would their primary goal be sincerity? IO are using this statement to get ahead of the news and retain some control of the narrative. It’s blatantly obvious their aim is to protect their own business interests. Safeguarding their public image is important for the long term success of the company, in turn protecting the jobs of employees remaining on the payroll.
Citation is not needed. There’s a very plausible risk from putting out a statement which names and shames a former partner company. If it were to be perceived as a public attack, not only will that company likely never work with IO again, but other potential partners may think twice about dealing with IO if they are perceived to behave unprofessionally.
This really isn’t rocket science.
It’s a ‘put our best foot forward’ situation. There’s the statement they’ve issued, and then there’s the hypothetical statement in which they invite additional risk for absolutely no gain. Colour me shocked that they opted for the former, and not the latter!
This mistery multiplayer project had a job request for a “Monetization Designer”, so I am happy about this.
obviously not that part. Who the f do you think I am ?
I think that it would be multiplayer was just an assumption from our side. They later announced Hitman Coop which could very well what that job posting was about.
We basically know nothing of this project.
So why are we talking about it ?
HMF users are a bit more interested in IO’s other projects compared to other parts of the Internet. It gives us a better idea when they have time for Hitman again.
I would appreciate that you edited in what you are happy about since this reads like you are happy about people losing their job.
I wonder if IO is financially struggling at the moment…
Mindseye, which IO published last year, was a total disaster. Now the release of Project Fantasy seems to- ironically- be becoming a fantasy with these new lay-offs.
I’m also still not convinced that First Light has even made its budget back at this point. It says a lot that TacSim has yet to be updated and more Steam users are currently playing WoA rather than First Light (only a month after its release!).
After the great financial success of Hitman 3, IO seems to have squandered it all on their subsequent projects. IO need to milk their moneymaker franchise and announce a new Hitnan game or expansion ASAP, using WoA as the foundation : ) Bbbut, of course, I’m not a businessman…
Well, hopefully IOI are going to drop some news on the new Hitman front very soon hopefully 