Was reading this article on news.com about Microsoft Games laying off employees. The bit that really captured my attention though was this:

A company representative said 34 positions were eliminated in Microsoft Game Studios--about 3 percent of the division's work force of 1,229 employees

34 positions is 3% of the game developers they have working there! Jesus f***ing christ! 1,229 employees! Thats just totally blown me away =\

i bet microsoft curns and burns employees

yeah but that's not 1229 game devs, probably counts all the people with useless sk jobs too, who are hopefully the ones that got fired.

MS makes f***loads of games though don't they ??

Hmmm, when i think of MS and Games
I only think of 2....

Thats Freelancer and AOE

I wonder if microsoft games just makes the games or if they also make the xbox console etc...

and Dungeon Siege, Age of Mythology, MS Combat Flight Sim...

Does MS Game Studio include thirdparty devs?

Does MS Game Studio include thirdparty devs?

I just assumed MS just buy's the whole studio if they need more tallent.

1200 is a f***ing lot...

myabe 1k of them working in dev/art/testing

Theyd have to be working on about 20-25 titles at once...

I wanna see the building!

oh well microsoft can always find another 1200 employees to hire and fire

At least 25% would be Management and ancillary staff like clerical, clearners, canteen staff etc etc. MS is also very top heavy with project management.

At least 25% would be Management and ancillary staff like clerical, clearners, canteen staff etc etc. MS is also very top heavy with project management.

MS Games would be pretty manager heavy seeing that it publishes most games and doesn't develop them.

Also the games division of MS also has money put into many of the inteface R&D teams around the place and usability labs. So a lot of their employees are not directly involved in making or producing games, but on making better interfaces and how to make products more usable.

At the same time they are hiring people in entertainment support roles, like working on Xbox Live infrastructure ect (check the three Microsoft jobs at that link).

Maybe some game in development got canned or something and everyone involed was booted.

Yeah 34 jobs realy isn't news worthy ...