And here's the email from Phil Spencer: yeah, we make more money than ever, but it's all possible thanks to firing people who previously did a great job and helped us to establish this foothold in the industry. Very ugly phrasing, IMO.

#Microsoft@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV
#XBox@GameDEV

Romero Games lost funding, Microsoft used to be their publisher (which wasn't announced before).

#LayOffs@GameDEV

This is brilliant

#LayOffs@GameDEV

If you've been fired from Microsoft, just use their AI to control your emotions...

Microsoft has loudly embraced AI, having announced plans in January to invest $80 billion into AI infrastructure prior to this latest wave of job cuts.

#Microsoft@GameDEV
#XBox@GameDEV
#LayOffs@GameDEV

Wargaming shuts down its fairly new game Steel Hunters and laying off stuff... the game lived in beta since April 2, 2025.

#LayOffs@GameDEV
#Wargaming@GameDEV

Do you remember the unsinkable Nokia? Intel lost its place among top-10 chipmakers and will have to fire even more people.

#LayOffs@GameDEV
#Intel@GameDEV
#Hardware@GameDEV

Seattle-based startup Rec Room, once valued at $3.5 billion, is laying off about half of its staff in a sweeping restructuring.

Co-founders Cameron Brown and Nick Fajt announced the layoffs Monday in a blog post, calling it “one of the toughest choices in Rec Room history.”

#LayOffs@GameDEV
#VR@GameDEV

Firaxis Games, known for XCOM, Civilization, and Marvel's Midnight Suns, just fired dozens of people.

Then the same fate hit Cat Daddy Games and Cloud Chamber, who worked on the next BioShock. All of them are owned by 2K, who previously stated that Civ7 performed well.

#LayOffs@GameDEV

“And Now His Watch Is Ended”: Build a Rocket Boy, the creators of Mindseye, are finally letting people go. Today dozens of ex-employees marked themselves available for hire on LinkedIn.

They finished the big patch that fixed a lot of issues, but the game is still played by 17 people on Steam and has no more sales. It was one of the last game studios in Edinburgh, comparable only to Rockstar North.

It's unclear what else and what's next can they do. Currently, it's more likely that the medium-size team will stay to work on much smaller AA projects.

#LayOffs@GameDEV

Avalanche Studios, the company behind Just Cause, Mad Max, Rage 2, The Hunter, Generation Zero, and the upcoming (but possibly cancelled) Contraband is laying off staff.

The studio in Liverpool will be closed, leaving Malmo and Stockholm standing, but with fewer workers.

#LayOffs@GameDEV