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Doom studio is “doing great” despite Xbox cutting half its staff, studio head insists
Xbox plans to cut 3,200 jobs by the end of its fiscal year, and Doom and Quake developer id Software has lost about half its staff. Studio co-director Marty Stratton says the team is “doing great” after the departures, though the scale of the cuts raises questions about its capacity and long-term resilience.
Stratton says there was a deliberate effort to keep the studio viable across game development and technology. The article reports that id Software’s in-house id Tech engine is now managed by one person, and says the studio is working more closely with Wolfenstein developer MachineGames on technology. Stratton says the collaboration began before the layoffs and that both teams are excited about their plans, but the article notes uncertainty about what this means for future Doom games.
In short
- id Software has lost about half its staff amid Xbox cuts.
- Studio co-director Marty Stratton says the team is doing well.
- Closer work with MachineGames leaves questions about future Doom plans.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
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The case for
Stratton’s reassurance may reflect a deliberate effort to retain the people and capabilities needed to keep id Software productive, while closer work with MachineGames could sustain its technology and development plans. If the collaboration was already under way, the staffing cuts need not mean the studio has lost its ability to make games or that future Doom projects are in doubt.
The case against
Losing about half the staff, alongside cuts that leave the in-house id Tech engine managed by one person, raises reasonable concerns about workload, expertise and the studio’s resilience over time. Collaboration with MachineGames may help, but it does not by itself establish that id can maintain its former capacity or that future Doom games will be unaffected.
Explained simply
id Software is a video game studio best known for creating the Doom and Quake series. It is part of Xbox, Microsoft’s gaming business, which also owns other studios including MachineGames, the developer of Wolfenstein.
Game studios rely on teams of developers to build games and the technology behind them. id Tech is id Software’s in-house game engine, the software used to create and run its games. The studio’s closer work with MachineGames means some technology work is now shared between the teams.
The reported staff losses matter because they could affect how much work id Software can take on and how it supports its technology over time. That may shape the studio’s future projects, including later Doom games.