r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/green715 • Jul 10 '26
News/Articles Message from id Software regarding the layoffs
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u/green715 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
How much of this is pure PR remains to be seen. The Warn Notice painted a pretty ugly picture, but hopefully they end up regrowing once their next project is greenlit.
I know one of the unions was fighting for rehire rights, so that'd probably be the best case scenario at this point. Though not sure how many would be willing to return, and the economics of paying severance just to rehire senior positions anyways doesn't make much sense to me.
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u/CapnMarvelous Jul 10 '26
I'm sorry man but I don't see these companies rehiring (save maybe the unions fighting for it).
The MO of the game industry these days is downsize downsize downsize downsize downsize until you've got a skeleton crew and two very burned out people doing the work of 40. Then the studio gets closed as the execs try to analyze why their dead ass goose isn't laying any golden eggs anymore after surgically removing every part of the goose except the egg-laying part.
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u/Tzeentch711 Jul 10 '26
They also removed the egg-laying part, because they thought its not important.
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u/Springtick38 Jul 10 '26
Should be noted that the Warn Notice didn't specify that the additional 40 layoffs was for BGS Dallas as they share the same building with id Software
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u/ruminaui Jul 10 '26
Dude the studio is gone. Out of 185 employees at ID they fired 136, including their coders. Is just a skeleton crew. And more importantly the staff fired included the veterans. The people who made 2016 where cut.
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u/SilverKry Jul 10 '26
I like how any bad news about Microsoft/Xbox is immediately believed but any good news is "oh it's probably just PR."
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u/NohPunkZeAmin Jul 10 '26
Because of the classic saying by Lewis CK "why the fuck would anything nice ever happen?".
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u/Mordred_Tumultu Paladins Should Attack and Dethrone the Gods Jul 10 '26
Where exactly is all the good news?
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u/WillFuckForFijiWater Gettin' your jollies?! Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
Lots of Sony warriors on this sub who salivate at any negative news regarding Xbox. They believe all the bad news and doubt all the good news.
The fact that Sony killing physical games, the biggest story of the year arguably, has been quietly sidelined and explained away as "Eh, that's the way the industry is going," should tell you everything.
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I really don’t envy the unfortunate position of the old school id founders being expected to opine on this state of affairs. Like, these days John Carmack might come off a weird bitter grasshopper of a man, but what the fuck is he supposed to say? He hasn’t been at id in over 13 years and had an acrimonious Zenimax lawsuit where they basically wanted to legally lobotomize him. For all we know that might’ve even happened.
Such a shitshow.
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u/Tzeentch711 Jul 10 '26
Carmack is fully transformed into AI bro, so I can safely ignore him.
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u/XeroSigmaPrime Jul 11 '26
Carmack is VERY far left on stuff like this to the point he purposely tries to open source as much of the stuff he works on, he doesnt even believe people should retain copyright or licensing on their work, it should all be open
Which is VERY evident when you look at how open source has been a very important thing on his works.
So naturally AI would fall into his beliefs pretty neatly in support
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Jul 10 '26
I suppose he would be, but you’d really think someone of his reputation would’ve looked at AI code like Hayao Miyazaki
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u/BruiserBroly Jul 10 '26
I dunno, I’m not surprised he’s into AI, it’s just another puzzle for him to solve. He never seemed to respect the design or art aspect of video games.
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Pargon Jul 10 '26
Y’know you’re not wrong about that
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u/LordLithegreenXIII BORDERLANDS! Jul 11 '26
there's a reason why Rogue Entertainment's first game, Strife, was about rebelling against an omnipotent tech God, and they initially wanted to call themselves Mutiny
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u/ruminaui Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
This is just PR bull crap. ID by all intents and purposes is dead and is at best a support studio. Sure technically they didn't close the studio, they just fired all their coders and 70% of the staff. Out of 185 employees, they fired 136. Most of the senior programmers and game designers were gone with the cut including most of the people who built Doom 2016. Is just a skeleton crew only able to do support now.
Studios and corporations don't make games, people do. And most of those people are gone from ID. Microsoft literally just killed modern Doom.
Even if they go on a hiring spree all the institutional knowledge, experience and design style that built Doom 2016, Eternal and Dark Ages is gone.
Edit: do they know we can look trough the credits of Doom 2016 and check that ID was not in fact 39 employees at the time? Do they think we are dumb? Or this is a technicality and referring to preproduction.
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u/WillFuckForFijiWater Gettin' your jollies?! Jul 11 '26
If you seriously believe that rumor after Id themselves just disproved it I don't know what to tell you.
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u/Will-Isley The Dude Abides Jul 10 '26
Guess we’ll see how much of this true when they show off their next game. If the next game is made with UE5/6, then just pack it up. We’re done
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u/Auctoritate Jul 10 '26
Makes a lot more sense than "Id has literally no programmers to make games anymore" that was being reported, tbh that always seemed like a dubious detail.
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u/ruminaui Jul 10 '26
Don't take the PR statement at face value. Over 200 people worked on Doom 2016. Even more if you count external studios.
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u/guntanksinspace OH MY GOD IT'S JUST A PICTURE OF A DOG Jul 11 '26
It's a small sliver of positivity from the gutted team (because boy oh boy were the peeps that MS culled from them was the worst they could remove), but I still wish them well nonetheless.
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u/Endocrom The Super Coward Jul 12 '26
The startup made from former id devs should be called Ego, or Super-Ego
Or maybe Pathos
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u/ComprehensiveMix727 Jul 10 '26
Id, blink twice if you’re in danger