Alright, so you want the rundown on ZeniMax Online Studios and id Software, the whole Xbox layoff situation, it’s a mess, a real mess. The floor here is just loud, so many people talking, can barely hear myself think. Okay, so ZeniMax Online Studios, the Elder Scrolls Online developer, they’ve been hit hard, really hard. We’re talking 213 employees laid off in this latest round, just from ZOS itself. That’s a big number.

And this isn’t even the first time, you know, they had another round in July 2025, 62 people gone then. That was after “Project Blackbird,” an MMO they were working on, got cancelled. So, if you add that up, that’s 275 people gone from ZOS in about a year. It’s a significant reduction, a very significant reduction. The studio leadership, like Jason Barnes, Associate Design Director, and Jessica Folsom, Associate Director of Community Management, they’re saying ZeniMax Online Studios is now back to the size it was when they made the Wrothgar and Summerset DLCs.

That’s like 2015 to 2018 era. The Elder Scrolls Online launched in April 2014, right? And by 2012, ZOS had 250 employees. So, if they’re back to 2015-2018 size, that’s a lot smaller than they were recently. The ZeniMax Online Union, ZOS United-CWA, they had 461 members at the end of 2024.

So, you do the math, it’s a big drop. The Elder Scrolls Online content roadmap, it’s shifting, they said. They need to evaluate things, get their plans straight, which, you know, makes sense when you lose so many people, so many talented people, and the game has generated over $2 billion in revenue by 2024. It has over 26 million lifetime players. So it’s not like the game isn’t making money. Then there’s id Software, the Doom and Quake guys.

They got hit too. 136 employees laid off there. That’s 96 office staff and 40 remote workers. The CWA said id Software had 185 people at the end of 2025. So that’s a huge percentage of the studio, a truly huge percentage.

They’re saying, id Software is saying, the team is now about the same size as when they were making Doom (2016). John Carmack, one of the founders of id Software, he said his “Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand” statement is “not aging well.” That’s a pretty blunt assessment, a very blunt assessment. This is all part of a much bigger picture, a much bigger Microsoft picture. In January 2024, Microsoft cut 1,900 gaming jobs across Xbox, ZeniMax, and Activision Blizzard. And this latest round, in July 2026, it’s approximately 4,800 jobs company-wide, with 3,200 of those from Xbox.

They said 1,600 Xbox cuts were immediate, and another 1,600 are coming by June 2027. Arkane Austin, Alpha Dog Games, Tango Gameworks, they were closed in May 2024. Compulsion Games, Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, they’re being spun off or sold. Arkane Lyon, their situation is unclear. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, she said the gaming unit was operating at margins that are 3-10 times lower than comparable businesses, and that this “cannot continue.” They’re also pouring a ton of money into AI, over $100 billion this year into AI.

So, you know, priorities. I bought some MSFT stock back on January 23, 2024, at $391.30 a share. I’m holding that until it hits $500 or if they announce another massive round of layoffs that actually impacts their core cloud business, then I’m out. It’s just a crazy time, a really crazy time in the industry.