Layoffs and studio closures continue to hit the video game industry hard. In the first four months of the year, the numbers are very alarming and almost equal to last year. Apparently, a whole division of a company will close for good.
Bethesda France, is another victim of this crisis. Even with the success of the Fallout TV show, it seems that is not enough, and the studio decided to close this country subsidiary. This team was working on Fallout and The Elder Scrolls Online. The news was confirmed by a French streamer on X.
Bethesda is making some changes
After a challenging 2023 marked by numerous layoffs in the video game industry, the situation has deteriorated further this year, with nearly the same number of layoffs occurring in just the first few months of 2024. This was mainly because of the mismanagement of different projects that had no sales at all and were only focused on being live-service titles. The companies and the executives are making horrible decisions about what games to make and what kind of IP will have success.
The studios and big companies have to take a step back and think really hard about how they invest time and money. Embracer Group, one of the main protagonists of these extremely poorly managed projects, lost money on bad investments, leading to numerous layoffs and studio closures. This team of investors has decided to sell part of their studios to recover some of the losses that they suffered because of the IPs that they launched recently.
Not even the success of the Fallout series could save this studio from closing
With a surprising post, French streamer Desastre confirmed on X that Bethesda France will be closing its doors. He made a very large text goodbye, thanking all the team behind this studio and talking about how they work hard to make their collaboration a great one.
Bethesda France 🇫🇷 c’est terminé ! 😔
— Desastre #EcoStream (@Desastre_Show) April 22, 2024
Vous l’avez sûrement vu passer aujourd’hui mais ça en est fini dès bureaux en France. Et ça vaut aussi pour ce qui est de TESO et Fallout entre autres.
Je vais donc utiliser ce tweet pour faire mes au revoirs publics à des gens sans qui je… pic.twitter.com/jOufsCC25W
The streamer mentioned that he has confidence that the team will recover from this and will make a very good comeback in new studios.
Bethesda has not confirmed that this is true, and fans were shocked to hear this, especially after the success of the Fallout TV series, which is making everyone come back to the gaming saga. This studio was behind Fallout games and The Elder Scrolls Online; this second game is not so popular, so this closure makes some sense, but at the moment there is no official confirmation from the company.
Confirmation of this will add to the long list of studio layoffs this year, including Microsoft, Discord, Unity, Behavior Interactive, Nimble Giant, and many others. There is no end to this bubble that is bursting right now, making the industry really think about what the next step will be to avoid losing more money. Developers are really hoping that this will finally end in the upcoming months.
What are your thoughts about these layoffs? Let us know in the comments!
