Xbox was supposed to be a safe place for developers to take risks and explore creative games. Xbox was supposed to be a safe and supportive home for a diverse range of developers and studios. Xbox was supposed to be different. Well, Microsoft is reminding everyone once again that it's a major corporation, and corporations only care about one thing — and it's not the consumers' happiness or the employees' wellbeing.
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it's fully closing three Bethesda Game Studios, and restructuring other teams under that umbrella. In one devastating move, Arkane Austin of Prey and Redfall fame, Tango Gameworks of The Evil Within and Hi-Fi RUSH fame, and mobile experts Alpha Dog Games are gone forever. It shatters beliefs that studios under the Xbox brand are safe to experiment, and reminds us all that capitalism favors absolutely no one but companies and shareholders — nothing is safe if it doesn't return exponentially increasing profit.
