Recently, Microsoft shut down studios named Arcane Studios, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, and Roundhouse Games. This comes as a shock as most of these studios created amazing games. Arcane may have missed the mark with Redfall this year, but it was still the talented developer behind Prey and Dishonored. Tango Gameworks was the winner of several awards due to their newest title Hi Fi Rush being both commercially and critically acclaimed. Alpha Dog Games haven’t created anything groundbreaking they were a mobile game developer, but were responsible for Wraithborne and Monstrocity: Rampage. Roundhouse games is the continuation of Human Head Studios and often assisted game development. There are rumors that there could be more. This has caused near everyone to ask why these were small, but talented teams capable of creating memorable games that people loved.

The change comes in light of an estimated $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. While it was expected the XBOX Game Pass and games developed would offset costs those had been going down in recent years. So Microsoft began cutting studios to fill the costs and fix losses. Rather than letting these studios grow and develop their IPs they shut the studios down breaking their promise to them. Many more studios are terrified for continuation. So Microsoft basically made a bad deal and others suffer job loss and loss of revenue because of it. They basically shut down studios that had potential for a company that has a good idea every few years otherwise they just release a new Call of Duty game that is basically the same as the last one.

Sources:

“Microsoft & Xbox reports reveal reckless Activision Blizzard acquisition & failing Game Pass gamble” YouTube, uploaded by Yongyea, 9 May 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpn-p8_D8GY&t=938s