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Dev at id Software says Microsoft 'burned a lot of bridges' in the industry

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kac77

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Dev at id Software says Microsoft 'burned a lot of bridges' in the industry: 'They fundamentally don't understand art, they don't understand games'​

By Harvey Randall
Published August 10, 2026
One of the biggest tragedies of Xbox's wide-reaching reset is id Software, which was cut by a whopping 136 roles. And while official statements from Microsoft and the studio have tried to reassure players that it's not been gutted, whether that's just a panicking Xbox trying to calm anxieties is up for debate.
 
rinaldo00 said:
I cannot listen to that bald guy for an hour and a half. I know for a fact two things:
1. Software companies over hired during Covid.
2. A lot of those hires were dead weight at best and destructive anti-gaming hires at worst.
Click to expand...
when Asha tookover there was one analytics piece which said Phil's Kindness Was Cruel

I agree. he was more of a techie like Pat Gelsinger than an executive like LBT

Vulkan based engines have no place in the xbox platform. can't even run FSR4
Should have sold off these game engines to other cloud competitors such as Nvidia, Amazon, Netflix, or Google when they had the chance

the X in Xbox stands for directX. this is a 3 decade old initiative within Microsoft. Ironically the best DX engine is Unreal & the best UE game developers are all within Xbox studios. maybe a future tie-up 🤔
 
Marees said:
Ironically the best DX engine is Unreal & the best UE game developers are all within Xbox studios. maybe a future tie-up
Click to expand...
It’s a blessing in disguise, Microsoft having its best engine owned and primarily developed by a competitor gets them out of so many antitrust, anticompetitive, anti monopoly lawsuits that it alone is worth it.
 
rinaldo00 said:
I cannot listen to that bald guy for an hour and a half. I know for a fact two things:
1. Software companies over hired during Covid.
2. A lot of those hires were dead weight at best and destructive anti-gaming hires at worst.
Click to expand...
Except the math isn't supporting your argument. In 2016 ID Software employed over 200 people, and this is important because this was around when Doom 2016 was released. In 2019 they had 185 employees and now they have around 49 employees. So no, COVID didn't push ID Software to over hire. Microsoft fired them for the same reasons why Rare is a forgotten name and why Halo keeps getting worse every new release. Doom as a franchise is basically dead.

This has happened so many times in gaming history that it doesn't get any less depressing. Who remembers games like Thief and Hexen? What happens often is that game studios are bought and then gutted until they fail miserably, and this is intentional. Microsoft knows that ID software won't survive very long as a studio and will eventually close as they should. Microsoft wants a money printer game, and not a good game. This is why Xbox has failed because Microsoft can't keep talent around to make good single player games, but Microsoft doesn't want single player games. Microsoft wants multiplayer games with cash shops that print infinite money. I don't know what the next Doom game will be, but I guarantee it'll be awful.


View: https://imgur.com/a/iyOptSW
 
Marees said:
Vulkan based engines have no place in the xbox platform. can't even run FSR4
Click to expand...
That's AMD's fault not Vulkan's.
the X in Xbox stands for directX. this is a 3 decade old initiative within Microsoft. Ironically the best DX engine is Unreal & the best UE game developers are all within Xbox studios. maybe a future tie-up 🤔
Click to expand...
I wouldn't call Unreal a good game engine. ID Software's use of Vulkan ties back to John Carmack who avoided closed API's, even though he stopped working for ID Software a long time ago. Also, ID Software was recently acquired by Microsoft so how quickly do you expect ID Software to jump onto DirectX? Minecraft still uses OpenGL and recently Vulkan and I don't see any complaints? Doesn't matter, this is a stupid complaint.
 
DukenukemX said:
Except the math isn't supporting your argument. In 2016 ID Software employed over 200 people, and this is important because this was around when Doom 2016 was released. In 2019 they had 185 employees and now they have around 49 employees. So no, COVID didn't push ID Software to over hire. Microsoft fired them for the same reasons why Rare is a forgotten name and why Halo keeps getting worse every new release. Doom as a franchise is basically dead.
Click to expand...
If you look at my post I never mentioned ID Software. I said that I did not watch the video. My post was about software companies in general.
 
DukenukemX said:
Except the math isn't supporting your argument. In 2016 ID Software employed over 200 people, and this is important because this was around when Doom 2016 was released. In 2019 they had 185 employees and now they have around 49 employees. So no, COVID didn't push ID Software to over hire. Microsoft fired them for the same reasons why Rare is a forgotten name and why Halo keeps getting worse every new release. Doom as a franchise is basically dead.

This has happened so many times in gaming history that it doesn't get any less depressing. Who remembers games like Thief and Hexen? What happens often is that game studios are bought and then gutted until they fail miserably, and this is intentional. Microsoft knows that ID software won't survive very long as a studio and will eventually close as they should. Microsoft wants a money printer game, and not a good game. This is why Xbox has failed because Microsoft can't keep talent around to make good single player games, but Microsoft doesn't want single player games. Microsoft wants multiplayer games with cash shops that print infinite money. I don't know what the next Doom game will be, but I guarantee it'll be awful.


View: https://imgur.com/a/iyOptSW
View attachment 820466
Click to expand...

Yeah I think this is closer to the truth here, nothing to do with COVID hiring. MS/Xbox are just terrible stewards of any development talent and belatedly take the axe to any supposed under-performance rather than making smart decisions with their staff or IP.

I think this was ID being punished for low sales on the Dark Ages, that ID really only has DOOM (as a household name) currently, and roundabout acknowledgement that bad management decisions on the Dark Ages may have hurt the IP / could taint sales of the next DOOM.

Rythym game mechanics are ultra-niche, even when they’re done very well (Hi-fi rush, anyone?). Doing something similar with the combat in Dark Ages (albeit without the beat/cadence) was a big mistake for a game they hoped to sell millions upon millions of. In an alternate universe where the Dark Ages is a more “normal” DOOM title (and not on game pass), I think it sells a lot better and most of these developers would still have their jobs.
 
rinaldo00 said:
If you look at my post I never mentioned ID Software. I said that I did not watch the video. My post was about software companies in general.
Click to expand...
In general that does apply but not in this situation. What's worse is that the people that were fired worked on ID Software's game engine, which isn't shit like Unreal is. This is how you know the next Doom game will be bad, assuming there ever will be one. The 49 people left are there to fail so that Microsoft has an excuse to close the studio. The only reason Microsoft didn't close down ID Software is because they knew the backlash would be far worse.
SamuelL421 said:
Yeah I think this is closer to the truth here, nothing to do with COVID hiring. MS/Xbox are just terrible stewards of any development talent and belatedly take the axe to any supposed under-performance rather than making smart decisions with their staff or IP.
Click to expand...
That's because Microsoft looks at games as a money game, as in if the game doesn't make infinite money then it's over. At least Sony tries to encourage development, even though I don't like the direction they're going with their future games.
I think this was ID being punished for low sales on the Dark Ages, that ID really only has DOOM (as a household name) currently, and roundabout acknowledgement that bad management decisions on the Dark Ages may have hurt the IP / could taint sales of the next DOOM.
Click to expand...
I don't think Dark Ages did bad but obviously not as good as Eternal. Eternal is by far the better Doom game, and one that'll change the course of gaming forever but nobody should expect ID Software to replicate that success so easily. Dark Ages is still a competent game compared to what other studios are releasing.
Rythym game mechanics are ultra-niche, even when they’re done very well (Hi-fi rush, anyone?). Doing something similar with the combat in Dark Ages (albeit without the beat/cadence) was a big mistake for a game they hoped to sell millions upon millions of. In an alternate universe where the Dark Ages is a more “normal” DOOM title (and not on game pass), I think it sells a lot better and most of these developers would still have their jobs.
Click to expand...
I like the idea of rhythm games but when I finally sat down and played Hi-Fi Rush I didn't like how they executed it. At some point I ignored the music and just focused on the timer in the game. Music wasn't even all that good. Also, the main character was insufferable. That being said, it was well liked and even Greenberg said it beat expectations.

I believe Microsoft wants to shut down as many studios as they can because they realized they screwed up buying so many gaming studios. Especially lately when people really don't have money to spend on games, which might explain why Dark Ages didn't sell as well as Eternal since Eternal had COVID and Dark Ages has a recession. Nobody has a problem getting Eternal with Animal Crossing to the point where it was meme'd to death. Sony and Microsoft and maybe to a degree Nintendo are probably now aware that this recession is limiting game sales and hurting their bottom line. They'd really like to sell games for $80 but that hasn't gone over well with sales. This is why Sony removed physical media and Microsoft is gutting their gaming studios. Not because they aren't making a profit but because investors had a money sad.


View: https://youtu.be/U4lz8MN6MQA?si=G3wByYu2NTauz8M9
 
DukenukemX said:
Except the math isn't supporting your argument. In 2016 ID Software employed over 200 people, and this is important because this was around when Doom 2016 was released. In 2019 they had 185 employees and now they have around 49 employees. So no, COVID didn't push ID Software to over hire. Microsoft fired them for the same reasons why Rare is a forgotten name and why Halo keeps getting worse every new release. Doom as a franchise is basically dead.

This has happened so many times in gaming history that it doesn't get any less depressing. Who remembers games like Thief and Hexen? What happens often is that game studios are bought and then gutted until they fail miserably, and this is intentional. Microsoft knows that ID software won't survive very long as a studio and will eventually close as they should. Microsoft wants a money printer game, and not a good game. This is why Xbox has failed because Microsoft can't keep talent around to make good single player games, but Microsoft doesn't want single player games. Microsoft wants multiplayer games with cash shops that print infinite money. I don't know what the next Doom game will be, but I guarantee it'll be awful.
Click to expand...
Employee count in of itself is not the full picture. How many of the 200 people in 2016 were OGs? Probably the majority. Now? maybe one or two holdouts. AAA gaming companies stopped hiring based on talent and began hiring based on HR's whims. The hiring criteria is not what can you do, or what did you work on before, but who are you and what are your politics. Internal feedback on games is almost completely suppressed, because if you say something doesn't work in the game, HR will tell you that's not allowed. Culture of toxic positivity is forced upon all. Until toxic positivity is squashed and HR is put back in its place, there is no hope for better games.

Franchises don't die because people get tired of them, they die because games are getting worse. You can't have the money printer game without it being fundamentally what players want first. Not what the activists want, what actual players want.
 
M76 said:
Employee count in of itself is not the full picture. How many of the 200 people in 2016 were OGs? Probably the majority. Now? maybe one or two holdouts.
Click to expand...
Nobody here knows, but we do know that in 2016 they had 200 employees and Doom 2016 was a good game that made good money.
AAA gaming companies stopped hiring based on talent and began hiring based on HR's whims. The hiring criteria is not what can you do, or what did you work on before, but who are you and what are your politics. Internal feedback on games is almost completely suppressed, because if you say something doesn't work in the game, HR will tell you that's not allowed. Culture of toxic positivity is forced upon all. Until toxic positivity is squashed and HR is put back in its place, there is no hope for better games.
Click to expand...
The 136 people that were fired worked on the game engine and not game development. While Dark Ages does show some of that modern audience, it's not exactly making plans to replace the Doom guy with Doom girl. Something we're starting to see with Sony games. If anything it's likely Microsoft is also leaning in that direction like Sony.
Franchises don't die because people get tired of them, they die because games are getting worse. You can't have the money printer game without it being fundamentally what players want first. Not what the activists want, what actual players want.
Click to expand...
Yes but why did games get worse? Look are RARE which during Nintendo's ownership they made amazing games, but once bought by Microsoft they made Banjo Kazooie nuts and bolts which flopped. The last game made by RARE was Sea of Thieves which is basically a cell phone slop game that does nothing but try to get you to buy in store crap. Game looks stupid as hell but has enough players to make Microsoft's investors not have a money sad. Microsoft wants ID Software to go this direction.
 
Last edited:
Golden rule of internet gaming forums: the longer a thread progresses, the closer it gets to complaining about women and minorities. Can we get back on track, please?

Microsoft's issues come down to poor business strategy where the Xbox console and studios have been too subservient to larger corporate goals (that's actually a problem for everything that isn't Microsoft 365 or Azure, including Windows). My hope is that Asha Sharma injects new life into the brand; I'd rather have a harsh reset and revival than a gentle fade into obliviion.

With that said, id Software's status makes me sad as someone who played its games from Wolf 3D onward. I hope there's a way to restore it, even if I know it's not going to recreate the early magic. I'd be happy with a 2016-era success.
 
DukenukemX said:
Nobody here knows, but we do know that in 2016 they had 200 employees and Doom 2016 was a good game that made good money.
Click to expand...
You still have an idea.
DukenukemX said:
The 136 people that were fired worked on the game engine and not game development.
Click to expand...
Which proves my point, they are replacing people who knew what they are doing with dead weight.
DukenukemX said:
While Dark Ages does show some of that modern audience, it's not exactly making plans to replace the Doom guy with Doom girl. Something we're starting to see with Sony games. If anything it's likely Microsoft is also leaning in that direction like Sony.
Click to expand...
C'mon, you know it's not about gender, it never was. It's the specific depictions, the story beats, the simplification of game mechanics, to the point where in most AAA games there are no consistent game mechanics, just set pieces you can't fail.
DukenukemX said:
Yes but why did games get worse?
Click to expand...
Because they got rid of the people who became game devs because they loved games, and replaced them with people who are at best indifferent to games, but see them as a platform for their messages or forcing players to live out and engage with their sick fantasies.
Plus because they (HR) shut down all internal feedback, so ideas very rarely get rejected or reworked.
DukenukemX said:
Look are RARE which during Nintendo's ownership they made amazing games, but once bought by Microsoft they made Banjo Kazooie nuts and bolts which flopped. The last game made by RARE was Sea of Thieves which is basically a cell phone slop game that does nothing but try to get you to buy in store crap. Game looks stupid as hell but has enough players to make Microsoft's investors not have a money sad. Microsoft wants ID Software to go this direction.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I know nothing of RARE, not even familiar with the name.
 
Shoganai said:
Unfortunately ... they're a large part of the reason why the gaming industry is going downhill. This is neither racist, nor sexist ... it's the current state of reality.
Click to expand...
No, they aren't. The industry's main problem is an obsession with recurring revenue, whether it's new-game-every-year franchises, live service titles, or an over-emphasis on DLC. Call of Duty is more problematic than Ghost of Yotei as it amounts to Activision (and by extension Microsoft) betting a huge portion of its revenue on a military shooter that rarely evolves beyond superficial mechanics. Ghost of Yotei didn't have to be a runaway hit to justify its existence; the 60% year-over-year drop in Call of Duty sales last year was a crisis.

This isn't to say that we can go back to the days when major publishers routinely took huge risks, but it'd be nice to see them give key franchises years to "breathe" while also producing more original titles. The industry can't evolve if genuinely fresh game ideas and stories never have a chance to get started.
 
Shoganai said:
Yes ... yes they are.
Click to expand...
And the evidence is? I can point to systemic observations and sales data, CoD didn't just struggle because of Game Pass last year; its failure has been directly attributed to poor quality as well. And basic logic will tell you that relying heavily on one product for your company's sales is dangerous (even Apple has reduced its dependency on iPhone sales).

We're talking about id Software in this thread, a studio whose franchises are about as 'safe' as you can get according to some folks in this thread: outside of Youngblood they've largely been successful hyper-manly shooters featuring white straight men. So you can't say that id had either fallen prey to internal rot or was facing outside pressure to diversify its game characters.

(Side note: I've learned that Ghost of Yotei outsold Doom: The Dark Ages, both short-term and in the long run.)

I see people looking for a scapegoat; they want an outside group they can blame, an easy fix. Just get rid of these people and we'll be back to the glory days! But the real problem is deeply ingrained and complex to solve, and too many people are unwilling to put in the effort.
 
SamuelL421 said:
Yeah I think this is closer to the truth here, nothing to do with COVID hiring. MS/Xbox are just terrible stewards of any development talent and belatedly take the axe to any supposed under-performance rather than making smart decisions with their staff or IP.

I think this was ID being punished for low sales on the Dark Ages, that ID really only has DOOM (as a household name) currently, and roundabout acknowledgement that bad management decisions on the Dark Ages may have hurt the IP / could taint sales of the next DOOM.
Click to expand...

I think this is it. Doom eternal shipped 3 million copies and made $450 million in sales the first 9 months. Doom the dark ages has not. But that is in large part due to gamepass. I suspect the ongoing engagement was not good, otherwise the sensible thingwould be to discuss it moving to the list of franchises that don't get day one support.

I agree with you that this was probably punishment. I suspect they have been cut back to the primary ideas team to come up with something a bit less samey than the doom games have been to justify their ongoing existence.
 
The old school shooters were leaner and cleaner, the new ones are to much magical gymnastic combo BS. This is why the older Dooms and Quakes were so popular.
 
kram182 said:
"Humans' main problem is an obsession with water, food and oxygen"
Click to expand...
It's more like an obsession with fast food. They like the immediate, consistent gratification; they don't want something that requires patience and might not always pay off, even if it's ultimately healthier for them.
 
Aurelius said:
It's more like an obsession with fast food. They like the immediate, consistent gratification; they don't want something that requires patience and might not always pay off, even if it's ultimately healthier for them.
Click to expand...

No, it's not. They need recurring revenue. They have operational costs, every day, of every year. That can either be paid by releasing a game (from a franchise portfolio) every year, or recurring revenue from online games, or both.

"Risks" are for when times are good, and you don't have to worry about going out of business if your risk doesn't pay off.
 
The talent is not gone, those fired employees especially those who are masters at game programming have an opportunity to form a new game company. Get Carmack back, investors and make a new IP. Screw MS, the remaining ID employees, who are good can leave as well and leave MS with nothing. It has never been the name, it was always the people, passion and vision that made ID software.

Unreal is being formed as an AI programming type language interface, getting rid of the node editor (human interface friendly) to accommodate games within a network of games. Play a game and inside of that game can be possible. like portals to other games or passways to use those assets with a paid pass. Basically, multiple games are modules inside of one parent project. The parent project is basically fixed and additional games are added, sharing assets and modules and adding as needed. Reducing game development time, costs, people needed and endless cash flow potential.
 
Aurelius said:
And the evidence is? I can point to systemic observations and sales data, CoD didn't just struggle because of Game Pass last year; its failure has been directly attributed to poor quality as well. And basic logic will tell you that relying heavily on one product for your company's sales is dangerous (even Apple has reduced its dependency on iPhone sales).

We're talking about id Software in this thread, a studio whose franchises are about as 'safe' as you can get according to some folks in this thread: outside of Youngblood they've largely been successful hyper-manly shooters featuring white straight men. So you can't say that id had either fallen prey to internal rot or was facing outside pressure to diversify its game characters.

(Side note: I've learned that Ghost of Yotei outsold Doom: The Dark Ages, both short-term and in the long run.)

I see people looking for a scapegoat; they want an outside group they can blame, an easy fix. Just get rid of these people and we'll be back to the glory days! But the real problem is deeply ingrained and complex to solve, and too many people are unwilling to put in the effort.
Click to expand...

I agree with you that microtransactions and the incessant need for monetization of everything are 100% primary drivers for the deterioration of the quality of video games, but I don't think it's a stretch to say the entertainment industry, both movies and video games, shifting to a philosophy of trying to turn brands that appeal to men into brands that appeal to women has led to disenfranchisement with the original core audience, which has had a negative impact on both product quality due to story elements resonating less with the core audience, and subsequently product sales. For a long time, this was justified in boardrooms as "capturing an untapped audience", but it hasn't played out that way. The reality is that men and women gravitate toward different things, and therefore it's hard it deny the feminization of previously male-dominated brands is leading to a reduction in quality in the final product from the point of view of the original target audience.

If you want an obvious example, compare Star Wars under George Lucas to Star Wars under Kathleen Kennedy. Kennedy wanted a more female-oriented storyline targeting a female audience. Most sci-fi (and Star Wars) fans are male. It hasn't translated into success. I don't think it's misogynistic to point that out. HR departments have made the hiring and promotion of men nuclear-grade toxic, particularly in male-dominated industries like tech, for several years, and there's been a clear influence on the final product that's been produced in many cases.
 
HockeyJon said:
I agree with you that microtransactions and the incessant need for monetization of everything are 100% primary drivers for the deterioration of the quality of video games,
Click to expand...
I wish that was still the case. Microtransactions could've never made games as much worse as the push to please the "modern audience".

It's not really feminization. Since these new modern female heroes are exhibiting signs of toxic masculinity. We've had female led games and we loved them, clearly the issue is not with feminization of games, but masculinization of women in games. Do masculine women appeal to women? No. I think what we see are the power fantasies of the DEI hire designers and writers, nothing more. There is no strategy to the madness, they just want to leave their skidmarks on everything they touch, even if it results in the ruination of IPs, like Halo, or Doom, or Star Wars, Star Trek, basically every once great money printer has been turned into struggling money pits, with no real fans.
 
HockeyJon said:
I agree with you that microtransactions and the incessant need for monetization of everything are 100% primary drivers for the deterioration of the quality of video games, but I don't think it's a stretch to say the entertainment industry, both movies and video games, shifting to a philosophy of trying to turn brands that appeal to men into brands that appeal to women has led to disenfranchisement with the original core audience, which has had a negative impact on both product quality due to story elements resonating less with the core audience, and subsequently product sales. For a long time, this was justified in boardrooms as "capturing an untapped audience", but it hasn't played out that way. The reality is that men and women gravitate toward different things, and therefore it's hard it deny the feminization of previously male-dominated brands is leading to a reduction in quality in the final product from the point of view of the original target audience.

If you want an obvious example, compare Star Wars under George Lucas to Star Wars under Kathleen Kennedy. Kennedy wanted a more female-oriented storyline targeting a female audience. Most sci-fi (and Star Wars) fans are male. It hasn't translated into success. I don't think it's misogynistic to point that out. HR departments have made the hiring and promotion of men nuclear-grade toxic, particularly in male-dominated industries like tech, for several years, and there's been a clear influence on the final product that's been produced in many cases.
Click to expand...
I don't think the issue is targeting the right audience. Women are roughly half the human population, and many of them are fans of Star Wars and video games. And its okay to have "masculine" women, too. But execution is everything.

Kennedy's problem wasn't diversifying the cast of the third Skywalker trilogy. It was that there wasn't a clear, cohesive vision for how that trilogy should play out. The Force Awakens? Great. The Last Jedi? I loved the subversive element, but it was such a hard turn and included some goofy elements. And Rise of Skywalker felt like an overcorrection that included some truly ridiculous elements (space horses!).

The same goes for games. You can have woman- and minority-led games that are well-done without pandering in any one direction. It's about strong gameplay and compelling characters, including women and minorities that defy stereotypes.
 
M76 said:
I wish that was still the case. Microtransactions could've never made games as much worse as the push to please the "modern audience".

It's not really feminization. Since these new modern female heroes are exhibiting signs of toxic masculinity. We've had female led games and we loved them, clearly the issue is not with feminization of games, but masculinization of women in games. Do masculine women appeal to women? No. I think what we see are the power fantasies of the DEI hire designers and writers, nothing more. There is no strategy to the madness, they just want to leave their skidmarks on everything they touch, even if it results in the ruination of IPs, like Halo, or Doom, or Star Wars, Star Trek, basically every once great money printer has been turned into struggling money pits, with no real fans.
Click to expand...

Once Blizzard discovered they could make more on a horse armour skin for WOW than they could on StarCraft II, gaming was in serious trouble lol.

But yes, the push to gain the mythical "modern audience" has 100% degraded the quality of gaming. Note I never said "feminization" or "toxic masculinity". Power fantasy is a better description. The problem is the people who have taken over the boards that make these decisions have strict rules about what male and female characters are able to say and do, based on a narrow definition provided by an extremely loud minority of staffers. Incidentally, the definition doesn't resonate well with men OR women in a lot of cases.
 
Aurelius said:
I don't think the issue is targeting the right audience. Women are roughly half the human population, and many of them are fans of Star Wars and video games. And its okay to have "masculine" women, too. But execution is everything.

Kennedy's problem wasn't diversifying the cast of the third Skywalker trilogy. It was that there wasn't a clear, cohesive vision for how that trilogy should play out. The Force Awakens? Great. The Last Jedi? I loved the subversive element, but it was such a hard turn and included some goofy elements. And Rise of Skywalker felt like an overcorrection that included some truly ridiculous elements (space horses!).

The same goes for games. You can have woman- and minority-led games that are well-done without pandering in any one direction. It's about strong gameplay and compelling characters, including women and minorities that defy stereotypes.
Click to expand...

We had women-led franchises for years that were successful. No one was bothered by it because the writing was good and the characters were relatable by both men AND women. Samus from Metroid, Peach from Mario, the original Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, Princess Leia from Star Wars, Sarah Connor from Terminator, Ripley from Aliens, etc. These characters were well received because they were relatable and realistic.

Once the "wokes" came in, that all went out the window. They created a myth that the male audience somehow hated female-led properties, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, and then applied critical theory to how these characters must be written. The result has been characters that are wooden and boring. There is no journey to be taken with them in the story because they're already perfect in every way. It's led to absolutely terrible storytelling. This has been a direct result of who's been promoted within these companies and given creative control. You can't deny that's a significant reason for the decline.

I agree that Star Wars 7-9 was clearly done seat-of-the-pants with zero long term planning, but there was simply nothing interesting about any of the characters, and the whole "girl boss Mary Sue Rey" thing got old fast. If they wanted a good female character the audience would have actually liked, they already had Mara Jade, but I digress.
 
Aurelius said:
I don't think the issue is targeting the right audience. Women are roughly half the human population, and many of them are fans of Star Wars and video games. And its okay to have "masculine" women, too. But execution is everything.
Click to expand...
Men are half of the population, so let's turn romcoms into scifi action movies to appeal to them! - Do you see now how stupid this is?

And no, it's not OK to have masculine women unless you want your movie to appeal to less than 1% of the population. Triple A games and blockbuster movies can't afford to exclude 99% of their potential audience.
Aurelius said:
The Force Awakens? Great.
Click to expand...
Good from afar, but far from good. It was almost a monthy python caricature of new hope.
Aurelius said:
The Last Jedi? I loved the subversive element, but it was such a hard turn and included some goofy elements.
Click to expand...
The "subversive" element is what alienated the audience.
Aurelius said:
And Rise of Skywalker felt like an overcorrection that included some truly ridiculous elements (space horses!).
Click to expand...
It was an overcorrection that managed to be more stupid than the stupidity it was attempting to correct. But I still can't hate it like TLJ purely because it is bad out of incompetence, and not out of malice (deliberate subversion)
Aurelius said:
The same goes for games. You can have woman- and minority-led games that are well-done without pandering in any one direction. It's about strong gameplay and compelling characters, including women and minorities that defy stereotypes.
Click to expand...
Note that nobody ever suggested games can't feature minorities or women.
 
M76 said:
Which proves my point, they are replacing people who knew what they are doing with dead weight.
Click to expand...
Microsoft even said that ID Software's game engine is the future at Microsoft. It was even used in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. With 49 people, we're back to using unoptimized Unreal Engine 5.
C'mon, you know it's not about gender, it never was. It's the specific depictions, the story beats, the simplification of game mechanics, to the point where in most AAA games there are no consistent game mechanics, just set pieces you can't fail.
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I'm not saying it played a role, but there is some modern audience stuff in Dark Ages. There is this one female character who plays an important role and looks like she's missing purple hair. Dark Ages decline in sales is because it popularized a growing trend in the industry which is parry. That and the theme of the game is more Nordic theming which doesn't feel like it belongs in a Doom game. As silly as this sounds but Dark Ages doesn't have much of a story. The DLC is a much better game with a lot of story elements that explains more of the prequel of Doom 2016 than the main game.

Again, that's not to say Doom Dark Ages is a bad game but when compared to Doom Eternal it just feels like a second class Doom game.
Because they got rid of the people who became game devs because they loved games, and replaced them with people who are at best indifferent to games, but see them as a platform for their messages or forcing players to live out and engage with their sick fantasies.
Plus because they (HR) shut down all internal feedback, so ideas very rarely get rejected or reworked.
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Exactly, but it's not always a natural progression to hiring untalented... talent. Sometimes it's all you can afford.
Sorry, I know nothing of RARE, not even familiar with the name.
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You don't know RARE? The creators of Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, and 3? Goldeneye 007? Banjo Kazooie? Conker's Bad Fur Day? Shouldn't surprise me since Microsoft bought RARE and were regulated to making shovelware games. I'm still a fan of RC Pro AM. Fun fact but David Wise also made this music.

View: https://youtu.be/SL5cUcVZgkI?si=Xu7G0DY-tJLAWOQ2
Shoganai said:
Yes ... yes they are.
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He's baiting you to respond.
mullet said:
The old school shooters were leaner and cleaner, the new ones are to much magical gymnastic combo BS. This is why the older Dooms and Quakes were so popular.
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Doom Eternal felt like a proper evolution of Boomer Shooters. Because every game must have a gimmick to separate itself then they add mechanics that complicate the game more than it's needed. Even Doom Eternal's RPG like mechanics did not need to be there, as did Dark Ages parry mechanics. Credit to Space Marine 2 because there was no RPG like mechanics, but the game was boring as you just ran into the next kill zone with the same enemies over and over.
 
But were they bridges worth keeping?

The amount of slop most studios have produced as of late isn’t worth the bandwidth to download let alone the time to play.

If they think it’s an awesome idea to spend 100 million on a product that has an audience of 10,000 people globally then their ideas suck and they need to be forcefully excised.
 
Aurelius said:
I don't think the issue is targeting the right audience. Women are roughly half the human population, and many of them are fans of Star Wars and video games. And its okay to have "masculine" women, too. But execution is everything.

Kennedy's problem wasn't diversifying the cast of the third Skywalker trilogy. It was that there wasn't a clear, cohesive vision for how that trilogy should play out. The Force Awakens? Great. The Last Jedi? I loved the subversive element, but it was such a hard turn and included some goofy elements. And Rise of Skywalker felt like an overcorrection that included some truly ridiculous elements (space horses!).

The same goes for games. You can have woman- and minority-led games that are well-done without pandering in any one direction. It's about strong gameplay and compelling characters, including women and minorities that defy stereotypes.
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This is why Star Wars is dead and Caffeine Kennedy is to blame.
Force-Female.jpg
 
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