That was how game developer Morgan Goin felt when she found out she was being laid off from her job at Xbox-owned ZeniMax Online Studios last week. The senior encounter designer, who worked on The Elder Scrolls Online, had known cuts were coming — for weeks, reports of a 'bloodbath' at Microsoft’s video game division circulated after the unit’s new chief executive, Asha Sharma, released a memo saying she planned to 'reset the business'.
'We knew something was going to happen to somebody, but not who or how much,' Goin told BBC Newsbeat. About a month later, workers learned that about 3,200 of them — an estimated 20% of the console-maker’s staff — were being let go. Half were cut immediately, with the remaining 1,600 to follow over the next 12 months.
“Xbox cuts 3,200 jobs (20% of staff) after CEO's 'reset the business' memo, sparking shock among workers.”
Xbox leadership has insisted the 'painful' cuts are necessary to equip it for future success as it pivots focus to its biggest blockbuster titles. The plan is to put more resources into its most popular series, such as Fallout, in the hope of getting new instalments out sooner. But former employees say the cuts have eliminated decades of talent and experience, and question whether the company will be able to achieve its aim of 'a bigger future'.
Layoffs have been commonplace across the video game industry since 2022, with estimates suggesting nearly 58,000 roles have been cut worldwide. Much of this is down to over-hiring and aggressive expansion around 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic sparked a boom in player numbers and spending. During this period, Xbox bought multiple studios and publishers, including ZeniMax/Bethesda and Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard for $69bn (£56bn) in 2023.
Video games remain profitable, but the cost of producing them has skyrocketed. Cost-of-living crises, customer habits and rising hardware costs blamed on massive investment in AI have all had an effect on the market.
When Sharma’s memo landed in early June, some staff, including Autumn Mitchell, started to worry. 'People are reading between the lines,' said the former senior quality assurance tester at ZeniMax. 'Does it mean me? Does it mean them? Does it mean my project? Does it mean my studio?'
Mitchell is one of four Xbox developers BBC Newsbeat spoke to who lost their jobs. All are members of studio unions affiliated with the Communication Workers of America union (CWA). They say requests for information were met with a 'deafening silence' in the weeks between Sharma’s memo and the cuts.