To the surprise of absolutely no one, Microsoft cut 1900 employees following their deal close out for Activision/Blizzard. Bobby Kotick got a nice sunset paycheck reward as a result, and Ybarra was shown the door. It’s simply continual sad news to be in game development these past few years, mostly because the price to entry and return on investment math is long gone (like the themepark MMO rush of the mid 00s). Blizzard in particular has simply been unable to right the ship of poor investment decisions that don’t have the word “battle pass” attached.

I want to pick on a particular thread in this larger convo though, and that’s specifically on survival game that’s been in dev for 6+ years – Odyssey. The math on this is simply mind boggling… and a testament to both the deep pockets and sheer madness of game development today. Tangent first:

Survival games are by their very nature, niche. And I say that in the context of a AAA game shop, where 1 million players is niche compared to things like Call of Duty. PvP games in this setting are popular yet struggle with tremendous griefing (try Rust for a week, let me know how that goes). PvE game are a rare event that can truly capture attention for more than a few weeks without procedurally generated content (Palworld and Enshrouded attention spans will be interesting.)

Minecraft is the absolute perfect example. Designed by a very small team with a fixed vision, it truly launched the survival wave with simple voxel mechanics and procedurally generated environments. Content was added over time, for FREE, and the game made mint. So much so, that Microsoft bought them, and has made every attempt under the sun to further monetize the game (Realms has had moderate success as a server hosting option, Dungeons and Legends failed big time). Taking the “big corporate” view on Minecraft simply has not worked.

In that vein, Blizzard’s seeming game direction was to not use an industry tool, but an in-house mobile variant to support 100 players simultaneously. Make it big and maintain the boil the ocean approach of “when it’s ready”. Throw a ton of developers on it, and invest a lot of capital. Which is truly a quite fascinating approach for a company who has struggled for decades to launch any new IP outside of Overwatch.

Reports internally were that the dev team was relatively enthused by the potential, but hamstrung by the executive choice of dev engine. Morale-wise, that’s got to be a hell of a slog. I’ve harped enough about the glory days of game dev, and rose colored glasses abound. There’s a larger reckoning underway in the games industry, where the ideas are less important that the boards. The democratization of development is making AAA game studios seem more and more irrelevant. And the kids’ dream of being a game developer has become even less clear than before.