Microsoft might have purchased someone, maybe

Its pretty clear where the priorities lie. They just wanted the Call of Duty series.

I did Humble monthly last month and actually now thinking that it is a much better deal then Game Pass. Drop in and out as you want, and you get to keep the games even when you aren't subscribed. It's a big bonus, although I can't imagine Microsoft ever adopting a similar approach, as they want to keep people subscribed. Plus, the keys are mostly Steam keys, so you don't need to use the shitty Microsoft app.

Shame the quality of the games is a bit all over the place. Last month there were 3-4 games I wanted to play. This month it is 1 maybe 2. Still better than the quality you get from PS Plus.

Weren't all the gamers annoyed when they tried to block the activision thing based on competition laws? Are they the same ones who are now annoyed that MS is cutting staff/studios? 

The problem with all these subscription services (for me) is that they're great value if you have massive amounts of free time to consume them, but less so if you only want to use them rarely. I probably play games like 30mins a week, and listen to spotify about an hour a week, so they're a lot less cost-effective than if I was a student and was consuming hours of each of them every day. 

Gamepass is also gonna follow the path of all such subscription services, and the price will increase again and again once they have users locked in, plus things will fragment as each publisher/platform goes subscription only. So you'll need to subscribe to 5 different games services. 

AAA gaming has gone like AAA movies. At least the indie / mid-size game market seems pretty strong right now. Though they're competing with these massive GaaS timesinks. 
But tbh I thought PC gaming in particular would have died out by now, with everything moving to mobile gaming, the decline in desktop and even laptop sales, etc.. but it still seems to be going pretty strong. 

Those do seem like the kind of games that will be needed at a regular pace on subscription services. Though I wonder if they've decided it's cheaper to just pay external devs for their small prestige games than to develop them themselves.

Not sure anyone would be throwing money at arcane Austin after Redfall.

Bit harsh on them, they made Prey which is one of the best in its genre. It's a bit mad to get a single player game studio to make a GaaS and then blame them for it when, as pointed above, they were hoping it would be cancelled. The studio gets the chop while those that made the decision to have them make a GaaS stays.




Oh go fuck yourself

Also don't get me wrong, job losses for all involved are awful but there does need to be a sustainable market for the products and I'm not sure there is at the moment due to market oversaturation. Look at some of the months releases, there are just too many games out for them all to find a market.

They'd be exactly the kind of studio that'd be good for smaller critically acclaimed games though, which would be great for gamepass.

Prey wasn't that good and I say that as someone who played it to completion.

Great initial atmosphere and fantastic level design and choices but poor monster variety, dull combat/stealth, a drab visual look and unoriginal story dragged it down.

It's the kind of game that was begging for a sequel as the main pieces were all there, just needed a fair bit of fine tuning.

Hopefully most of the staff will be taken on at Arkane Lyon or other Bethesda Studios.

Good thing sega have already said no.

I just want to see Nintendo's reaction the next time Spencer gets in touch.

Wasn't it leaked a while ago that Dishonored 3 is being worked on? If Arkane Lyon are focusing on Blade who's doing that?

There was also the stories that all the veteran Devs left arcane Austin during the Redfall development.

www.pcgamer.com/report-most-of-arkane-austins-prey-veterans-quit-during-redfalls-development-and-the-ones-that-stayed-hoped-microsoft-would-cancel-it/

Yep.
Several messaged me over live when I was playing it a couple days early to ask how. Pretty much every one of them ended the conversation with I've just left or I'm leaving next week.