Bethesda employees plan protest over Microsoft layoffs

Last week, Microsoft announced a massive shake-up to its Xbox division, planning thousands of layoffs, alongside new mandates to focus on the company's most successful game franchises. Now, Bethesda employees are planning to protest. 

OneBGS, the union formed for Bethesda Game Studios employees and backed by the CWA, has confirmed that it will be holding a protest across Bethesda offices in Austin, Maryland, Montreal and Rockville on July 15th. The idea behind the protest is to force Microsoft to negotiate with them on exactly how the layoffs take place.

OneBGS wants Microsoft to offer stronger severance packages and extended healthcare to those impacted by the layoffs. The union also wants Microsoft to offer transfers to other open roles across the company, as well as preferential recall rights should Microsoft look to expand Bethesda once again.

Whether or not any of this will be successful remains to be seen. A similar protest recently took place at Quantic Dream too, where employees were demanding that management reassigned the developers behind a failed live service game to Star Wars Eclipse, citing a lack of resources for the project. Similarly, Bethesda employees are claiming that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be negatively impacted and potentially massively delayed due to the cuts taking place.

KitGuru Says: We should never cheer on layoffs, but from the outside fan perspective, it has been clear for a long time that Bethesda needed a major change. A decade has passed since Fallout 4 and despite a hugely successful TV show, there is currently no Fallout 5 in development. The situation is even worse for The Elder Scrolls, where 15 years have passed since the last mainline game. 

Become a Patron!