How many of these video game layoffs are we going to go through? After Sony bought Bungie last year, it seemed to be doing well. They’ve just laid off a ton of people. With support from Electronic Arts, you’d think BioWare would be able to crank out quality games with great stories. Absolutely not. They’ve just laid off a ton of people too. Despite having one of the best years of games - I dunno - ever, the industry has already shed thousands of jobs.

And I’m going to be honest: consolidation is to blame. I’ll be even more honest: fans encouraging and celebrating consolidation is one of the reasons these companies can so easily dump longtime writers and composers without public consequence. Everyone’s stupid console war is part of the reason why there are so many layoffs. It’s not the whole reason, but tribalism in gaming fandom definitely does not help.

Here's a full breakdown of what comes next for Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.

I’m not saying a subset of fans caused it - that’s not the case. But fans often eagerly give corporations a PR win for swallowing another company whole and making their games ‘exclusive’. Whether fans want to admit it or not, corporate consolidation of game companies has very rarely turned out to be a good thing. Sure, I get it! As an Xbox owner, knowing I’ll automatically have new Activision games on Game Pass is great. It’s convenient! It makes me feel good about buying an Xbox. At the same time, if you thought Activision had problems before, wait until it goes through redundancy after redundancy to meet corporate quotas.

Yes, there are other factors at play. Between inflation, interest rates, and over-expansion, a lot of what these companies are going through is part of the unnatural hell that is business. By the way, we can probably stop treating business like it’s a force of nature. We all know money is made up and actual people are involved in bad decisions, right? Because it’s just so wild that they can still afford to pay the CEOs tons of money! Sure, they could take a cut - but who else is going to dress like it’s casual Friday at some awards show? CEOs are the most vital part of the company: they get to announce games to fans and then tell the world it’s actually good that they fired the people who made the game. Tightening belts!

Which is to say, putting the blame on fans is pretty unfair of me. They don’t make the choices of who to hire and who to fire. They do, however, very often give the corporations carte blanche to act the way they want, as long as they keep popping out Popular Franchise 7: Game Of The Decade Edition. When the fan response remains positive every time a game company strips a smaller developer for parts, those same companies are only encouraged to keep doing it. It’s a double win: it makes their fans feel like they just got a fun new action figure and it allows them to own big IPs while dumping the expensive people who make it.

Of course, game company consolidations aren’t new. Electronic Arts bought Maxis and tore it apart. Square Enix bought a bunch of companies and now has absolutely no idea what to do with them other than throw their own games under the bus and desperately look for a way out. But almost every example of this happening has resulted in either worse games, massive layoffs, or both. None of that is reason to wave our hats in the air and say, “Hooray! Finally, we can get the game cancellations we’ve deserved!”

Fans don’t run the companies. Fans don’t make the business decisions. But when we slap our hands together like a wind-up monkey holding cymbals, the companies take that as a good thing. It’s a sign that the people who give them money approve. Hell, it’s a sign that the people who give them money will go on the internet and fight to the death for that company’s honor.

Today is a sad day for Bungie - Bungie CEO Pete Parsons after approving mass lay offs at the company

So, to disagree with my own headline, no - fans alone don’t cause layoffs. And being a fan of a console doesn’t either. But the more people throw a party for every merger and acquisition, the more these companies will be able to repeat this process with minimal pushback. Overpaid executives and corporate boards are responsible for making this industry worse, but maybe we shouldn’t encourage them in the process.

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