After the recent widespread layoffs by Microsoft which has affected around a staggering 9000 employees across various subsidiaries and branches, the company is facing sharp criticism from other industry heads and one of them is EA Japan president Shaun Noguchi who has called out Microsoft for prioritizing “short-term results from large-scale investments”, which he believes is the cause of such drastic measures that’s clearly unfortunate for the industry as a whole.
In a recent post on Twitter/X, Shaun Noguchi shared his thoughts on the brutal layoffs and has blamed companies’ like Microsoft’s obsession with short-term successes for the decisions that have impacted so many in the industry including multiple studio closures and game cancellations.
“In recent years, foreign-affiliated companies have become more inclined to seek short-term results from large-scale investments, and there are many cases where they change direction to meet shareholders’ expectations before enough time has passed. We believe this incident is a result of such a structure.”
He also pointed out that one of the biggest pains in any industry that’s driven by creativity and passion is when something that the developers have worked for a reasonably long amount of time doesn’t get to see the light of day and for the players who were eagerly waiting for something to experience, never get the chance to for some reason.
“What supports the game industry are the creators and staff who have been working sincerely on development. As someone in the same industry, I feel a deep sense of pain from this decision. The regret that something built over a long period of time will not be released to the world, and the reality that gamers who were looking forward to it will never even have the chance to experience it.”
The gaming industry is definitely going through a really hard time with multiple round of layoffs by different companies, leading to an unprecedented level of instability and uncertainty among the developers.
