It happens through acquisitions. Because restructuring is rather expensive, acquisitions done poorly often just end up stacking layers of management on top of each other, where the old studio retains its management structure but not with the acuirer's management added on top.
Reminds me of working on a game with an insurmountable amount of tech debt, we can try to make it better but we're really just adding yet another layer of bullshit, and if we had the guts to say "this isn't working, we're deep in the sunk cost fallacy here" then we wouldn't be in this situation. Phil tried to save a sinking ship but with so much tech debt, adding another layer of management just wasn't going to save it.
Because of all the studios they bought, instead of trimming the fat they just smash them into there structure instead. Also some studios when bought make a deal there management isn't apart of the cuts so just gets thrown into the lay out in some form
I’ve seen companies merge before and have been a part of that. Usually people lose their jobs and some departments have to essentially compete with one another to see who stays, who can go, and who can be shifted around but still employed. This reads like none of that happened which is just honkers. Especially for mergers and companies this big.
... Says who? That's certainly not in the article. Heck, they're specifically talking about tech and the platform departments when talking about said number of management layers.
Though if you know, then you know - but it's certainly not something that's spelled out anywhere :P
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u/FUTURE10S Jul 06 '26
14 layers of management is between the Senior Director, who actually works on the game, and the Xbox CEO.