Dinga Bakaba, Co-Creative Director at Arkane Lyon, which worked closely with Arkane Studios, expressed grief on X (formerly Twitter) after Microsoft announced the closure of multiple studios. In a series of heartfelt tweets, Bakaba criticized the instability of the game development industry and raised concerns about management practices.
The main point of his message is about the importance of taking care of developers. Bakaba asks industry leaders to prioritize supporting their creative teams, even during tough times. He criticizes the competitive and challenging nature of the current game development work environment.
The studio co-creative director has also commented on the idea of an “immersive sim curse.” This theory proposes that games in the immersive sim genre, which prioritize player choice and intricate simulations, are fundamentally unsuccessful from a business standpoint. Bakaba encourages the community to move away from this belief and concentrate on tackling the real difficulties game developers encounter.
I try to see both sides because we never want to see studios close, so it’s hard for a company like Microsoft to do this well. However, the issue is that most of the studios that are being closed made critically acclaimed games. It’s hard to make sense of it because it seems like their reward for doing well was to get shut down. I also understand that Arkane Studios is probably the only studio on that list that didn’t do well at all, but it shouldn’t have been closed anyway. Redfall was definitely a disaster, but Bethesda clearly had plans to fix and improve it. This feels like Microsoft is looking at what Bethesda wanted to do and deciding to do their own thing.
More on the closure: Bethesda Studios For Evil Within, Redfall, and More Closed by Microsoft; Positions Eliminated Throughout ZeniMax
I’m not saying that isn’t a typical business move, but it doesn’t seem like ZeniMax was for it. It also doesn’t seem like those at the studios had any idea they were about to lose their jobs. So, they likely were not given real indication that those above them were considering this. The real issue is that this is unnatural and a spur-of-the-moment decision. Some updates made us think this wasn’t going to just end. Luckily, those supporting Redfall despite its shortcomings will get credit.
Arkane Lyon has been assured that their studio is secure amidst the development of Redfall. Still, he worries about the other skilled teams affected by studio closures. It’s hard to see, and honestly, Dinga Bakaba is one of the only people brave enough to speak out against his parent companies. Seeing him speak up is good because most wouldn’t say anything.
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