The splash damage from Microsoft’s decision to gut its games division, especially the developers behind Zenimax Online Studios’ formerly in-development MMO Project Blackbird, is still being felt across the industry. Readers will no doubt remember that there was already reaction from the Communications Workers of America (CWA) unions within Microsoft over the layoffs, but now we have a direct statement from ZOS United-CWA, the wall-to-wall union formed by workers last December, about the matter.
Parts of the statement mirror what was said earlier – that the union is bargaining with Microsoft to ensure affected workers are appropriately cared for – but it also asserted that despite the shuttering of development of Blackbird, many ZOS devs are still employed in the meantime.
“While Microsoft and ZOSU-CWA bargain over how we move forward following the project closure, the developers behind the unannounced project remain employees of ZeniMax Online Studios with full pay and benefits. […] It is true that a layoff may be in the future for some of our members. However, as a result of our organizing, we are able to ensure that those impacted will be able to depart with dignity.”
The union also had plenty of pointed remarks for Microsoft and how the cuts were handled. “On July 2nd, our lives were upended without prior notice or communication from Microsoft leadership and without clear understanding about the status of our employment,” the statement reads. “Where Microsoft has failed to support the talented craftspeople who have generated billions in revenue, our union has stepped up to provide clarity and support.”
On the subject of Microsoft’s failures, a LinkedIn post from principal development lead for Xbox Graphics Mike Matsel has earned plenty of professional roasting, as it very obviously features an AI-generated piece of “artwork,” with strange shading and coloration, a monitor that has its screen backwards, and some deformities in terms of human anatomy and basic hardware understanding, as one image reply clearly points out (and which we’ve provided below).
“The audacity to layoff all your dedicated brightest minds to pay for your AI slop, to turn around and pretend like you care about people enough to replace the ones you fired, and using generative AI garbage to advertise it,” reads a reply from someone who is listed as a senior software engineer at Microsoft. “Fk right off with this dehumanizing mentality.”
This is the latest demonstration of what now appears to be regular leadership-level behavior at Microsoft: Matt Turnbull, executive producer at Xbox Games Publishing, suggested that the thousands of employees who were let go by the corporation should use LLM tools like ChatGPT to console themselves. Perhaps they can do so while driving an Uber and going to the beach.
