One problem that is largely unique to gaming though is that they can't really increase prices in the same way that many other industries have done to compensate for the inflation. I mentioned above that some places are paying 40% or more than they did pre-Covid, well those places also tend to be charging alot more now. For instance McDonalds in my area was paying $8.50 an hour pre-Covid, now they pay $14 an hour, a $5.5 an hour increase in just 4 years. However, prices have increased to compensate, a combo meal was about $5-7 pre-Covid depending on which exact combo, now $8.50-11 depending on the combo, the McChicken and the McDouble were on the dollar menu before Covid, now they cost $2.50 and $2.70 respectively, a whopping 150% and 170% increase in just 4 years. Small/medium/large fries went up from $1/1.50/2 to $2/3/3.50.

However the gaming industry can't really increase prices in the same way as many other industries can. They increased the price of games to $70 right at the beginning of the pandemic and saw huge blowback from gamers over that increase, so they know they can't afford to push it to $80 so soon. They tried to compensate by releasing more GaaS games so they could sell more microtransactions, but many gamers don't want those either. In a way their hand has been forced, if they can't charge more for their product the only way they can protect their bottom line is to reduce their payroll by laying off employees. Sucks for sure.

Correction to my comment earlier, ABK has 17,000 employees.

• ABK = 17k
• XGS + Zenimax = 5k
• Total = 22k.

Jason knows Blizzard has new projects in development within Blizzard, he seems to be meaning new IP because he says he people may think Microsoft is now going to double down on franchises which are already successful but Jason doesn't believe that will be the case.

Hearing a lot of the layoffs are hitting "redundant departments" such as marketing and departments you'd expect to be hit after a merger with another company which does similar sorts of business.

Horrible L move from Microsoft, imagine being so happy that horrible Bobby is gone, and now Phil announces you have to go....

People can fly also just announced to shrink down and cut 30 jobs.

The changes to streaming apps is worldwide, the changes to sideloading is EU only.

They all came from the Square Enix project, would not be surprised if it gets cancelled eventually, Square spoke about cutting back on stuff recently.

Nintendo is the only good company regarding layoffs in this industry, always tried their damn hardest to avoid them, have to respect them for that.

(I just saw an Iwata quote)

Layoffs across COD studios as well, developers included, not only marketing/community folk.

Sounds like practically the entire Odyssey team was laid off.