Chris Hays, id Software’s lead services programmer, has been at the company for over 15 years. And he’s one of the devs who remains at the studio behind Doom following Xbox’s massive layoffs in July. While Xbox and studio leadership claim that id can ship a game like Doom (2016) again with fewer people, Hays disagrees, and claims Microsoft doesn’t “understand art” or video games.
In a recent interview with the Well Played podcast, Hays openly talked about the status of id Software following the recent layoffs. And the studio veteran who has worked on games like Doom Eternal and Doom: The Dark Ages didn’t hold back about how he feels regarding Xbox, the layoffs, and Game Pass.
“It is hard to make a game that is AAA that’s like we’ve done before with half the people. And by hard I mean impossible,” said Hays in a clip of the interview that’s going viral on social media.
“It’s hard to make a game when there are entire departments that are gutted that you need. Entire disciplines that are gone. So the reassurances that we’re still the same id and we’re still gonna do things—well, first of all, We’re not the same id. We’re half the same id.”
According to Hays, id management has been given “talking points” and has been told by Xbox what they can and can’t say. And according to him, it feels like Xbox is trying to reassure the remaining devs at the studio that things are okay and that id has a future because it doesn’t want “more people to jump ship” and then be left with nobody.
“At the end of the day, most of it was just trying to tell us that, ‘oh no, everything is fine. And things will be okay,’” said Hays during the podcast. “The same lines that they said publicly, like, ‘Oh, well, [the studio is] the size of Doom 2016′ or ‘we’re close to that same size,’ and so we shipped that game, so we could ship another game. Things of that nature.”
When the host pointed out that Xbox and id’s claim that the studio is the same size seems suspect based on how many names you can spot in the Doom (2016) credits, Hays replied: “There is a reason they say close to, because it is less.”
Kotaku has reached out to Xbox for more information and clarification.
Hays also shared some critical words about Xbox’s popular Game Pass subscription service. Because id Software is owned by Bethesda, which is owned by Xbox, all of the studio’s games are available day one on Game Pass. So a large chunk of the Xbox fanbase on Xbox and PC doesn’t have to buy a single new game published by Microsoft. And yet, Hays says Xbox would still criticize Bethesda’s sales numbers.
“I know that [id has] serious issues with how Game Pass is done,” said Hays. “Whenever we see the financial reports that say that there were poor sales under Bethesda, like, what’s a sale? If you have Game Pass, are you saying poor sales means a poor number of games sold? Cause of course. [Xbox isn’t] doing a ‘games sold’ business model.”
At the end of the viral clip, Hays also criticized Xbox and claimed the company “fundamentally” doesn’t understand art or video games.
“If you cut half of a studio and don’t take into account how it’s made,” said Hays, “you don’t understand the cohesion between our teams was a part of what made it successful.”
In July, new Xbox boss Asha Sharma announced that the company would cut 1,600 jobs that month and 1,600 more people would be laid off before the end of the year. These cuts were brutal, and when they’re all done, will represent around 20 percent of Xbox’s total headcount. As a result of these layoffs and changes, Xbox also divested from some studios it had bought over the years, including Double Fine and Compulsion Games. In an email to employees last month, Sharma called the layoffs and studio changes “the most significant restructure in Xbox history.”