DEI Is Destroying Gaming Faster than It Destroys Movie Studios

Or so it seems to me. I am open to arguments about Movie studios dying faster.

First Sony moved their games division from Japan to the US, and then adopted US corporate BS. Xbox is part of the huge Microsoft bureaucracy. Both companies swallowed the DEI lies hook, line and sinker. And now they are sinking, because - shocking I know - gamers don't want DEI messaging jammed down their throats while they are enjoying a video game. And they have started voting with their wallets.

French video game company, Ubisoft, is probably the poster child for Get Woke, Go Broke in the gaming sphere. Their stock price has collapsed from a high of just over 90€ in 2018 to just over 5€ today. That is roughly a 90% decrease. But they are not the subject today, just a cautionary tale.

Sweet Baby Inc claims another scalp. The games studio behind South of Midnight is closing. From Video Games Chronicle: Xbox is reportedly shutting down South of Midnight studio Compulsion Games | VGC

The studio, which was founded in 2009 and acquired by Xbox in 2018, most recently developed South of Midnight.

According to Kotaku, however, the studio is set to be shut down as part of widespread layoffs at the gaming division.

The studio is in "negotiations" with Microsoft to be spun off instead of closed outright. If they have any IP worth anything, Microsoft will probably hang on to that and let the people go.

And yes, there were quite a number of Sweet Baby Inc folks "working" on that title.

From Marvin Montanaro at Geeks + Gamers we get a story about Marathon. RUMOR: Bungie Layoffs Could Eliminate 50% of Remaining Workforce After Marathon’s Failure

The future of Bungie appears increasingly uncertain as a new report claims the studio could be preparing for another massive round of layoffs, with as much as half of its remaining workforce reportedly at risk.

Bungie is a studio owned by Sony PlayStation. Rumors (out of France) are that 50% of the company could be laid off.

Bungie dropped future development support for their popular Destiny 2, to double down on their bets on Marathon.

Xbox has been in the news because of South of Midnight. People are not bullish on that company's future. From Polygon: Microsoft should get out of games before it does more damage

News that Microsoft is considering closing three of its game studios — Double Fine, Ninja Theory, and Compulsion Games — is awful, but what's truly alarming is that it doesn't stop there. According to Bloomberg, "several other studios across the portfolio are at risk of being shuttered." State of Decay studio Undead Labs hasn't shipped a game since Microsoft acquired it in 2018. Obsidian Entertainment is prolific, but last year's Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 underperformed. Rare had its big bet Everwild cancelled and can't survive on Sea of Thieves forever. At this point in Microsoft's dismally bungled adventures in gaming, it's best to think the unthinkable.

There are a lot of details at each of those links.

The poster child for failing games, is of course Concord, from Sony. I was surprised to see that this actually died in 2024, it seems like only yesterday that everyone was pointing and laughing. Sony shut Concord down in 2 weeks, and provied refunds. There are plenty of articles and more than a few YouTube videos on that debacle.