Shannon Loftis, a former director at World’s Edge and a Microsoft veteran with more than 29 years of experience in the company, has recently slammed current Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s style of leadership in a series of posts. Loftis had first joined Microsoft way back in 1993, became a GM at Xbox Entertainment Studios and had served briefly as a VP of Microsoft Game Studios after working as the Studio Head at World’s Edge Studios, which speaks volumes on her credentials in the company.
After the news of the most recent Xbox layoffs broke out this week, which also impacted employees at World’s Edge besides many other studios, she stated the following:
“Crushed to hear the news from Xbox today. I am not sure how any of these moves constitute “clarity” but for those impacted, particularly World’s Edge people – you are SO much more than this.”
However, right before that, in a post on Threads that has now been deleted, Loftis had sharply criticized current Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s approach to management in the brand:
“Super funny that Asha Sharma said “clarity is kindness” to the WSJ last week then did a half layoff today. I guess Damocles’ Sword is a form of clarity, what do I know?
Please, Asha, publish more “cool” photos from your Japan Kojima-maxxing trip. That’s the kind of leadership game developers need.”
While it certainly hasn’t been long since the new Xbox CEO came at the helm of the brand, however, we’ve already seen arguably the harshest mass layoffs across many studios that have impacted thousands of developers and would continue to affect many more in the coming weeks and months. And while there’s an effort to paint all of it as a sort of ‘inevitable’ Reset for Xbox, what’s being actively glossed over is the simple fact that when the jobs of the developers themselves aren’t as secure as they should be, it simply can’t be good or nourishing for the industry at large.
