{"id":75135,"date":"2026-08-09T11:31:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T03:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=75135"},"modified":"2026-08-09T11:31:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T03:31:05","slug":"doom-dev-blasts-xbox-after-microsoft-gutted-id-software-with-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=75135","title":{"rendered":"Doom Dev Blasts Xbox After Microsoft Gutted id Software With Layoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">After layoffs ripped through Doom developer id Software in July, lead services programmer Chris Hays has taken aim at Xbox: &#8220;They fundamentally don&#8217;t understand art.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Hays, who is currently employed at the studio behind first-person shooter classics like Doom Eternal and has been with the team since 2010, unloaded on the recent decision to cut 136 staff during a recent conversation with Andre Peschke on <u>Auf ein Bier<\/u>. He didn&#8217;t mince words, to put it lightly.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;It&#8217;s hard to make a game that is AAA, that&#8217;s like we&#8217;ve done before, with half the people. And by hard, I mean impossible,&#8221; Hays said. &#8220;It&#8217;s hard to make a game when there are entire departments that are gutted that you need, entire disciplines that are gone.<\/p>\n<p><output class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\" data-cy=\"article-video\"\/><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;So, if they&#8217;ve got some kind of new plan for how this is going to work, that hasn&#8217;t been told; we don&#8217;t know what that is. The reassurances that we&#8217;re still the same id and we&#8217;re still going to do things, well, first of all, we&#8217;re not the same id. We&#8217;re half the same id. id was the people. What made us special was the people and the relationships we have.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The &#8220;reassurances&#8221; Hays mentioned at least partially refer to <u>some of the messages<\/u> that have emerged in the fallout of last month&#8217;s layoffs. id issued <u>a statement to IGN<\/u> July 10 that thanked fans for their support, acknowledging that, while the studio had been &#8220;impacted,&#8221; the restructuring left it at &#8220;about the same size we were when making Doom 2016.&#8221; It added, &#8220;We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we&#8217;re known for.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">id reclaimed its title as a leading FPS studio with its 2016 Doom game and went on to keep its crown with 2020&#8217;s Doom Eternal and 2025&#8217;s Doom: The Dark Ages. Hays said id&#8217;s overseers at Microsoft and Xbox are trying to minimize the &#8220;unrest.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><output class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\" data-cy=\"article-slideshow\"><button type=\"button\" style=\"display:none\" class=\"jsx-2228525885\"\/><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">Doom: The Dark Ages Revelations Reveal Trailer Xbox Games Showcase 2026 &#8211; Screenshots<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" decoding=\"async\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2896921488 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"\/><span class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--primary jsx-3027214138 jsx-4266531355 row-pagination-button next contained centered round large\" data-cy=\"paginate next\" title=\"Open Slideshow\"><span class=\"ign-icon right-chevron jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"right-chevron\" style=\"mask:url(https:\/\/kraken.ignimgs.com\/_next\/static\/media\/RightChevron.272be43c.svg?cors=1) no-repeat center center \/ contain;background:currentColor\"\/><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/output><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;Studio management is given talking points on things that are allowed to be said and what is not allowed to be said,&#8221; he added. &#8220;It feels like it is, instead, more reassurances. They don&#8217;t want more people to jump ship and say, &#8216;Oh, there&#8217;s no more future in id, so we&#8217;re all going to leave,&#8217; and then there&#8217;s no one left. They don&#8217;t want unrest. At the end of the day, most of it was just trying to tell us that, &#8216;Oh, no, everything is fine. Things will be OK.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Hays said the reality is that id now houses &#8220;less&#8221; than the number of staff that worked on Doom 2016. He noted that fans will certainly have their preferences in the series but added, &#8220;There is a lot more that went into each of the [Doom] games that went along. We made bigger and better games, but that&#8217;s with twice as many people as we had. So, we have fewer than we had before. So, are we going to make something equivalent to a single-player Xbox 360 game? Because that&#8217;s the size of the studio we have.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">id has a special place not only in gaming history but in the hearts of those who have continued to show up for the studio&#8217;s work in the decades since its inception. Doom has also stood the test of time \u2013 so why was id hit so hard?<\/p>\n<p><output class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\" data-cy=\"article-slideshow\"><button type=\"button\" style=\"display:none\" class=\"jsx-2228525885\"\/><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">The 100 Best Xbox Games of All Time<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img alt=\"What is an Xbox? Microsoft has spent 25 years trying to answer the question, but for fans, the answer is easy: \u201cXbox\u201d evokes one-eared headsets wired into the memory card slots of massive controllers with breakaway cords. A dashboard with gleaming skeuomorphic blades and avatars adorned in earned accessories. That sound that plays when a hard-earned Achievement finally pops. \u201cXbox\u201d means heavy-duty hardware. Tactile sensations. Friends connecting for the first time. And that\u2019s before we even get to the games.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#10;&#10;It may be that the very idea of an Xbox game is coming to an end. Microsoft has undeniably shifted its tactics, with a new focus on multi-platform releases, handheld Xboxes that are actually miniature Windows computers, and the potential that future Xbox consoles may simply be gaming PCs. So now seems as good a time as any to look back at the entire history of Microsoft\u2019s console journey and rank the best Xbox games, with help from our friends at Outside Xbox, the multimillion-subscriber channel that serves up weekly videos about video games and video game-adjacent things&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#10;&#10;When we say \u201cthe best Xbox games,\u201d we mean the ones that most evoke that weighty sense of \u201cXboxness.\u201d Some are first-party, most are exclusives, and all of them are indelibly tied to the legacy of and fondness for a platform that\u2019s left a massive mark on gaming. These are the 100 Best Xbox Games of All Time. We'll be updating this list daily with 25 games at 7am PST\/10am ET\/3pm GMT from Tuesday, 20th January to Friday, 23rd January, until number one is revealed.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2896921488 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"\/><span class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--primary jsx-3027214138 jsx-4266531355 row-pagination-button next contained centered round large\" data-cy=\"paginate next\" title=\"Open Slideshow\"><span class=\"ign-icon right-chevron jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"right-chevron\" style=\"mask:url(https:\/\/kraken.ignimgs.com\/_next\/static\/media\/RightChevron.272be43c.svg?cors=1) no-repeat center center \/ contain;background:currentColor\"\/><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/output><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">That&#8217;s the question Peschke asked, but Hays said he has &#8220;no idea&#8221; why the layoffs were spread out like they were. One topic the question did lead to, however, was Game Pass.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;On the ground level, we don&#8217;t get to know what that is,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We can have guesses just like everyone else. I know that we have serious issues with how Game Pass is done. Whenever we see the [Microsoft] financial reports that say there were, you know, poor sales under Bethesda. What&#8217;s a sale if you have Game Pass? Are you saying that poor sales means poor number of games sold? Because, of course.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;You&#8217;re not doing a game-sold business model. They fundamentally don&#8217;t understand art. They don&#8217;t. They don&#8217;t understand art. They don&#8217;t understand games. They don&#8217;t understand that business model.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"poll-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<section class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\"\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"> While the layoffs at id seem to have shaken the Doom studio&#8217;s foundation, the employees lost represent a fraction of the total layoffs that swept through Xbox teams in July. It&#8217;s part of a &#8220;<u>reset<\/u>&#8221; that new CEO Asha Sharma called the &#8220;<u>most significant restructure in Xbox history<\/u>&#8221; at the time. It immediately impacted 1,600 staff the day of its announcement, with another 1,600 spread throughout the current financial year.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Hays said he would &#8220;love to try to hit the goals that are set for&#8221; id, but those goals aren&#8217;t evenly communicated. Instead, they are told to &#8220;just make the best game we can.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;Under ZeniMax, before <u>the acquisition<\/u>, that was also how it worked for attributing success,&#8221; he added. &#8220;If we did well on a score for critical acclaim, and we had decently solid sales but they weren&#8217;t meeting expectations, then that is a problem for marketing and sales. If you scored low, you didn&#8217;t make a good game.<\/p>\n<p><output class=\"box-wrapper jsx-2673806401\" data-cy=\"article-video\"\/><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;They tried better to find that. That is obviously not how Microsoft is operating. It doesn&#8217;t make any sense.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Asked to elaborate on why Xbox and Microsoft don&#8217;t understand art, Hays said, &#8220;If you cut half of a studio and don&#8217;t actually take in account how it&#8217;s made, you don&#8217;t understand that the cohesion between our teams was what was important. What made us successful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">id launched Doom: The Dark Ages last year and went on to release its <u>Revelations<\/u> DLC last month. IGN called it &#8220;Amazing&#8221; in our <u>9\/10 review<\/u>. For more, you can read about why one of our writers believes <u>Xbox is dismantling its future to rebuild a past it can never recapture<\/u>.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He&#8217;s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/articles\/they-fundamentally-dont-understand-art-doom-dev-blasts-xbox-after-microsoft-gutted-id-software-with-layoffs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After layoffs ripped through Doom developer id Software in July, lead services programmer Chris Hays has taken aim at Xbox: &#8220;They fundamentally don&#8217;t understand art.&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5664,4140,5122,26072,897,3576,4392,162],"class_list":["post-75135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-blasts","tag-dev","tag-doom","tag-gutted","tag-layoffs","tag-microsoft","tag-software","tag-xbox","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}