Fired by Microsoft? There's an AI for That

Hey, remember when there were actually people cheering for Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard? Cheering for them to "save" the company from big bad Bobby? Or the people who genuinely believed nothing bad would come from one of the world's biggest corporations buying up the industry and slapping everything on Game Pass, simply because it's cheap and "good" for them? Of course, we still have the people who believe Phil Spencer can do no wrong and that Game Pass is the second coming.

Well, now we can all learn. That $68.7 billion spent on Activision alone wasn't just free money Satya Nadella gave Phil for being a good boy. Phil probably begged for it, promising Satya the moon and stars from the acquisition. Now the boss needs his numbers to go up, and Phil hasn't been doing much with his multi-billion-dollar studio spending spree.

Meanwhile, what about that vile scumbag Bobby Kotick? Oh, I'm sure he's just devastated. Probably out there on his mega-yacht, wiping his tears with hundred-dollar bills from his severance package worth around $400 million.

And don't forget, he made sure to spread the wealth, helping a whole crew of his high-exec friends become multi-millionaires on his way out the door.

A golden parachute for all the villains, signed, sealed, and delivered thanks to Phil Spencer's "rescue mission." The whole thing was a shitshow designed to make the rich even richer.

As we know, Microsoft has been on a layoff mayhem spree ever since the post-COVID spending bubble burst. Last year, the closure of Tango Gameworks was just the beginning. A real shame, too; I quite enjoyed The Evil Within 2. This time, it's the biggest and most impactful cut yet. Nearly 9,000 employees were laid off across Microsoft, with a huge portion coming from the gaming division. Various projects deep in development were cancelled. Studios were shut down entirely. That's right, some of these studios, like The Initiative working on the Perfect Dark reboot, didn't even get to release their work before getting canned.

Satya Nadella said it's to focus on high-growth areas like "AI"... Right. The industry that's a black hole for investor money, energy, and lawsuits with no clear plan for profitability for years. Even within Microsoft, there seems to be no clear strategy for Copilot other than integrating it everywhere. It's gotten so bad they've reportedly made its use mandatory for their own employees to boost engagement. Truly "high growth", spending billions just so the majority of your workers and clients would rather use ChatGPT.

And if you want the perfect poster boy for this whole corporate shitshow, the main image for this post says it all. Let's talk about Matt Turnbull, an Executive Producer at Xbox Game Studios Publishing.

After his company gutted its studios, this dick head went on LinkedIn not with an apology, not with a shred of solidarity, but with a helpful list of fucking AI prompts for the people who just lost their jobs.

He actually suggested asking an AI to "reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss." He even gave a script for anyone feeling down after he helped put them on the street: "I'm struggling with imposter syndrome... Can you help me reframe this experience?"

And the best part? Look closely at his post. He suggests using "ChatGPT or Copilot". Even a Microsoft exec instinctively lists the competitor first. Don't let Satya see that, he might make another 9,000 people 'redundant' just for thinking it.

You can't make this shit up. It's the perfect snapshot of the company's entire culture. It reveals the exact kind of brain-dead, brown-nosing yes-man that thrives there. The kind of 'leader' who sees thousands of ruined livelihoods and immediately thinks the best way to suck up to the bosses is to offer a sterile tech 'solution'.

This is the perfect employee for Satya's Microsoft, a scumbag offering AI to fix the very human pain his own employer inflicted. This is what modern corporate brain-rot looks like.

And Phil, the man himself who instigated all of this. His memo to staff was a masterclass in tone-deaf corporate speak. He had the nerve to say, "I recognize that these changes come at a time when we have more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before... We must make choices now for continued success in future years." Imagine looking someone in the eye, telling them the business is more successful than ever, and then firing them.

But the real elephant in the room is Game Pass, the supposed 34-million-subscriber behemoth that's cannibalising sales and quality. That 34 million figure is from February 2024. Since then, Microsoft has been very quiet about its success. Hmm, wonder why? Oh, that's right, Phil Spencer himself admitted in April 2025 that Game Pass growth has stagnated on consoles.

Keep in mind that number is already inflated. It includes everyone who was converted from Xbox Live Gold to the cheaper "Game Pass Core" tier. Then consider the countless people who subbed for years using the famous £1 trial or other deep discounts. The number of people actually paying the full £14.99 a month in a strong currency? I doubt it's even a quarter of that headline number.

It's clearly not enough to offset the damage. The logic is simple. Say your small studio made a game for £10 million. You lowball your launch sales expectation at 100,000 copies at £50 each. After the publisher's cut, you're on a good path to breaking even. If your game is good, you're easily profitable.

But now, launch it day-one on Game Pass. You've already lost potentially millions of buyers. Someone interested sees the £50 price and decides to just use a £1 trial or re-sub for £15 one month to play your game. Now you've only made a fraction of what you should have. It's even less than that, because that £15 sub also gives them access to hundreds of other games, including AAA titles that cost hundreds of millions to make. If your game is good, like Hi-Fi Rush, people play it on Game Pass and very few actually buy it. If your game is mid, it gets the damning label of "just get it on GP," a death sentence for a studio that needs actual sales. How could any sane person look at this and expect it to be sustainable?

The reality is, it's not. Even their own leaked internal documents from 2022 admitted that Game Pass leads to a decline in base game sales.

Now that damage is being passed directly to customers and employees. We saw the Game Pass price increases, but that was just the start. Now we have DOOM: The Dark Ages costing a staggering £69.99 for the standard edition on Steam. We have the AA mediocrity that was Avowed launching at £59.99. Their sales declines are now being directly passed off in price hikes, especially for non-subscribers.

Take Avowed as Exhibit A of this rot. Even after delays, what finally stumbled out was an unfinished, AA-quality mediocrity slapped with a full AAA price tag. This is the very definition of a "Game Pass game." A title that feels engineered not to be great, but simply to exist. Its purpose isn't to justify its own price tag but to pad out a subscription library and give the illusion of value.

This is Microsoft's Netflix playbook: fill the service with disposable, third-rate content to keep people subscribed. The fatal flaw in their genius plan is that you can't shit out a video game in a few weeks like you can a cheap reality show. Game development can costs from 7 to 9 figures and takes years, and this "content-first" model is burning studios and developers to the ground.

So what has the $68.7 billion Activision deal actually done for Microsoft? Well, it gave their Q3 FY25 a hell of a number to boast about to Wall Street. They get to tell the money-men that their gaming revenue shot up by 62% in a single quarter.

Looks great on paper, until you dig into the details they provide those same investors. In their own breakdown, they admit that 61 of those 62 percentage points came purely from dragging Activision's existing revenue onto their books.

And the other 1%? That's the "growth" from the entire existing Xbox and Bethesda empire.

Yes, a pathetic 1% of organic growth last quarter. This is the return they're getting from the nearly $8 billion they already spent on ZeniMax, plus who knows how much else. Wow. I just can't wait to see next year's numbers, when they have to show actual organic growth. It'll be a masterclass from a company that clearly knows how to manage and build a gaming business.