VGC: ‘A f***ing gut stab’: Arkane boss criticises Microsoft execs for studio closures

[FIREPOWER 765]

 We tried to warn lemshits this would eventually happen. These retarded cultist lems care more about their corporate overlords like Phil Spencer than games or the console they claim to love LMAO...

 

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/a-fing-gut-stab-arkane-boss-criticises-microsoft-execs-for-studio-closures/

 

 

 

“YOU SAY WE MAKE YOU PROUD WHEN WE MAKE A GOOD GAME. MAKE US PROUD WHEN TIMES ARE TOUGH.”

Arkane Lyon boss Dinga Bakaba has publicly criticised Microsoft executives for their decision to close several studios, including its Austin studio, calling the news “a fucking gut stab”.

On Tuesday, the Xbox maker told staff at four studios, including Redfall maker Arkane Austin, that they are planned for closure. Games boss Matt Booty claimed that some staff would be moved to other teams and others would be laid off.

Bakaba, the creative director of the critically acclaimed Deathloop and currently working on Blade, responded to the news on X with an unusually frank and critical message than we’re used to seeing from somebody running a first-party studio.

“This is absolutely terrible,” he wrote. “Permission to be human: to any executive reading this, friendly reminder that video games are an entertainment/cultural industry, and your business as a corporation is to take care of your artists/entertainers and help them create value for you.”

He added: “Don’t throw us into gold fever gambits, don’t use us as strawmen for miscalculations/blind spots, don’t make our work environments darwinist jungles. You say we make you proud when we make a good game. Make us proud when times are tough. We know you can, we seen it before.
 

 

“For now, great teams are sunsetting before our eyes again, and it’s a fucking gut stab. Lyon is safe, but please be tactful and discerning about all this, and respect affected folks’ voice and leave it room to be heard, it’s their story to tell, their feelings to express.”

Arkane Austin is planned to close alongside Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango Gameworks, Elder Scrolls Online co-developer Roundhouse, and Mighty Doom developer Alpha Dog.

The Austin team, which was initally set up in 2006, worked on the first Dishonored alongside other Arkane teams, before developing the 2017 version of Prey on its own.

Most recently, the studio was responsible for Redfall, which was released in 2023 to technical issues and an underwhelming critical reception (the game currently has a Metacritic score of 56).

Its closure means that planned ‘Hero Pass’ DLC for the game, which had remained in development despite the game’s bad launch, has now been cancelled, with all development on the game now ended.

Players who had previously pre-ordered the game and were expecting to get the Hero Pass as part of their order will now be getting “make-good offers” instead, according to Xbox.

The news of the studio closures follows confirmation earlier this year that 1,900 staff would be laid off across Activision Blizzard, Bethesda and Xbox.

 

According to head of gaming Phil Spencer at the time, the decision had been made after Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s leadership teams “set priorities, identified areas of overlap, and ensured that we’re all aligned on the best opportunities for growth”.

 

 

 He's absolutely going in on Phil and Co. I hope for his sake they don't shut down the entirety of Arkane. It's not too far out of the realm of possibility with MS.

 

 

 

Edited May 7 by FIREPOWER

[MalaXmaS 651]

Do you have the transcript of what happened when the Sony Japanese studios were closed? 

[Tears of the Cows 1,233]

Too bad redfall sucked  no time for trash devs

[Cell 439]

Tbh any studio that puts out Redfall is asking for it. 
 

[lynux3 2,165]

1 hour ago, Tears of the Cows said:

Too bad redfall sucked  no time for trash devs

Redfall was created by Arkane Austin.   This studio made the PS5 banger Deathloop. 😎

Spoiler

Dipshit.

 

Edited May 7 by lynux3

[JonDnD 2,698]

Redfall was trash but you shut down a studio for one bad game that they didn't even want to make ? 

 

Tango , who made arguably one of the best exclusives for MS ? Imagine getting all that praise,  then get to port to ps5 and have a whole new player base play your great game. To celebrate ? You get fired.

 

Throw away your creative teams.

 

Fuck MS 

[FIREPOWER 765]

1 hour ago, Tears of the Cows said:

Too bad redfall sucked  no time for trash devs

You realize Arkane Austin and this Arkane Lyon are different sister studios right? This isn’t the same Arkane that made Redfail. So you’re also admitting Tango Gameworks was a trash studio since they also got shut down despite the fact this time last year you were hyping Hifi Rush as a GOTY candidate. You’re an absolute retard 
 

 

Retard lemshits throwing Arkane Austin under the bus to damage control for MS not also realizing they are throwing Tango under the bus too. Weren’t you retards hyping Hifi Rush as a mega successful GOTY candidate last year? 

 

 

Edited May 7 by FIREPOWER

[lynux3 2,165]

22 minutes ago, JonDnD said:

Redfall was trash but you shut down a studio for one bad game that they didn't even want to make ? 

 

Tango , who made arguably one of the best exclusives for MS ? Imagine getting all that praise,  then get to port to ps5 and have a whole new player base play your great game. To celebrate ? You get fired.

 

Throw away your creative teams.

 

Fuck MS 

[Tears of the Cows 1,233]

48 minutes ago, FIREPOWER said:

You realize Arkane Austin and this Arkane Lyon are different sister studios right? This isn’t the same Arkane that made Redfail. So you’re also admitting Tango Gameworks was a trash studio since they also got shut down despite the fact this time last year you were hyping Hifi Rush as a GOTY candidate. You’re an absolute retard 
 

 

Retard lemshits throwing Arkane Austin under the bus to damage control for MS not also realizing they are throwing Tango under the bus too. Weren’t you retards hyping Hifi Rush as a mega successful GOTY candidate last year? 

 

 

Guilty by association

 

no time for trash. Dony should do the same

 

Tangos best and brightest were absorbed

Edited May 7 by Tears of the Cows

[Remij 4,717]

Now that I'm home and can actually type something, I can honestly say... FUCK Phil Spencer for this shit.  What a fucking bitch.  He talked a lot of shit about "oh we're looking for Japanese support" and wanting to have representation in Japan... and yet he closes their only actual studio based there.... who made one of their best games this gen... and has tons of potential..

 

Like just FUCK RIGHT OFF.  They don't stand by their studios at all.. they don't grow them and foster good talent and it shows.  They don't give any IPs time to fucking grow and become beloved.

 

Phil has to go.  

[FIREPOWER 765]

3 minutes ago, Tears of the Cows said:

Guilty by association

 

no time for trash. Dony should do the same

 

Tangos best and brightest were absorbed

 You're a fucking imbecile.

 

 

 I'm glad you lemshits are going extinct. You're a bunch of retarded cultists that don't give a fuck about gaming.

 

 

In typical cuck fashion you only care about sucking off Phil Spencer 

[Twinblade★ 3,986]

The amount of people shitting on MS right now on my twitter feed is just insane. I know many studios have been shut down recently but MS is not going to live down these closures anytime soon.

[Remij 4,717]

2 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

The amount of people shitting on MS right now on my twitter feed is just insane. I know many studios have been shut down recently but MS is not going to live down these closures anytime soon.

I was just about to say this  

 

People who I never expected would ever talk shit about MS are saying "fuck it I'm done with them"..

 

Richest company in the world... closing down studio after studio..

[Tears of the Cows 1,233]

29 minutes ago, FIREPOWER said:

 You're a fucking imbecile.

 

 

 I'm glad you lemshits are going extinct. You're a bunch of retarded cultists that don't give a fuck about gaming.

 

 

In typical cuck fashion you only care about sucking off Phil Spencer 

My guy all these games are trash. I only give a fuck about Nintendo games, which remain the best in the industry.

[Twinblade★ 3,986]

2 hours ago, Remij said:

I was just about to say this  

 

People who I never expected would ever talk shit about MS are saying "fuck it I'm done with them"..

 

Richest company in the world... closing down studio after studio..

 
The timing is also bad because no matter how good hellblade 2 ends up being, it’s going to be overshadowed by this news and people will be extra critical of it when playing it.

[Remij 4,717]

5 minutes ago, Twinblade said:

 
The timing is also bad because no matter how good hellblade 2 ends up being, it’s going to be overshadowed by this news and people will be extra critical of it when playing it.

 

Hellblade 2 isn't going to sell what MS wants it to.. guaranteed.  They haven't marketed the game at all (though they're supposed to start next week or something lmfao)... like what the fuck are they thinking?

 

Ninja Theory should be very concerned if that game doesn't do well... 

[jehurey 3,299]

2 hours ago, Twinblade said:

The amount of people shitting on MS right now on my twitter feed is just insane. I know many studios have been shut down recently but MS is not going to live down these closures anytime soon.

even more insane is that, especially on reddit, but also on other social media sites, there's actually people trying to defend how these closures are logical.

 

absolutely disgusting.

 

AND...........................all of this, fucking EVERYTHING that we are seeing, we already had multiple people on this very forum saying out loud that Microsoft is going to eventually end up doing this.

 

As early as 2019 when the Bethesda deal was going through, we knew what Microsoft acquisitions and what GamePass was going to result in.

 

All of these studios had Day 1 PC ports..............didn't fucking matter, because it never moved the needle.

 

How is anybody surprised at this when they dropped out of the Mobile Phone OS war 10 years ago.

 

Think about how many billions, and POTENTIALLY billions of dollars they wrote-off when they gave up that market?

 

Microsoft only has two modes:

1. Try to perform market capture through predatory means to eliminate the competition

or

2. Once they realize they can't capture the market, they complete drop everything and fire everybody in that division.

 

There's only one exception, and that's the cloud business, but being #3 in that industry is still massively profitable to them, because that is where they moved their OS and Office to.

[Goukosan 2,283]

7 hours ago, DynamiteCop said:

None of those studios actually made money, and just because the studios are shutting down doesn't mean that they aren't relocating people from within those companies.

 

This is just consolidation.

 

Don't worry guys,  no one got fired... it's just consolidation.  

[madmaltese★ 2,617]

Moral at all time low at MS it seems, sucks that Bethesda seem to bearing the brunt of it here. Redfall was shit but Arkane Austin also made Prey which is excellent. One bad game and a studio is done. Expect zero risk from anyone. 

 

Said it a million times now, Phil Spencer is one of the fakest people. Media trained like crazy, nearly everything he says is always 99% bs. Yet most people have been lapping him up for years.

[JonDnD 2,698]

If state of decay 3 is cancelled I will fight con man Phil Spencer