Earlier this month, rumors began to spread about potentially massive layoffs coming to Microsoft’s Xbox gaming division this summer. While the majority of those those cuts don’t appear to have happened yet, game developers under Xbox have come together to push for more layoff protections for their members.
Members of the United Video Game Workers and representatives from workers at Microsoft’s first-party studios–including Bethesda’s parent company Zenimax, as well as Activision Blizzard–were present at a press conference conducted by the Communications Workers of America. Collectively, they pushed for enhanced layoff protections for all Xbox workers, including advance warning of impending layoffs, temporary hiring freezes to give the remaining devs a chance to advance internally, and two years of recall rights for affected employees.
As reported by Kotaku, speakers noted that Microsoft has paid its executives exorbitant amounts of money while investing billions in AI while recently raising the price of Xbox consoles again.
