‘We did not have layoffs earlier than, and now unexpectedly now we have yearly layoffs’: Bethesda artist says ‘one thing has modified’ underneath Microsoft

Last week, the Communications Workers of America and the Bethesda Game Studios OneBGS union took half within the Save Our Devs rally throughout the United States and Canada (and on Twitch) “to call out layoffs and corporate greed across the industry and to demand fair first contracts across Microsoft’s gaming studios.” Speaking to Kotaku, Bethesda artist Alex Nguyen talked about how issues modified after Bethesda was acquired by the tech big.

“Since we’ve been under Microsoft… it feels like something has changed. We didn’t have layoffs before, and now all of a sudden we have yearly layoffs,” he informed Kotaku, saying groups had been feeling the consequences of cuts which eroded institutional information. “If only five people knew how this thing worked and you let all five of them go, that’s a morale killer because it’s like we already knew this, and now we have to learn it again.”