Microsoft is Gutting the Video Game Industry w/ Nathan Grayson

Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx is joined by Nathan Grayson to discuss the latest round of Microsoft layoffs and how the company’s ambition to remake the video game industry around its streaming service has had significant consequences.
Nathan Grayson is a co-founder of Aftermath and author of Stream Big: The Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch and the Stars Behind the Screen.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.
Also mentioned in this episode:

• An Xbox producer told laid off staff to use AI to help cope with unemployment.
• Microsoft is moving towards pressuring staff to use AI through employee evaluations.
• Nathan mentions that it’s unclear whether Game Pass is even profitable given how they balance the books.

Support the show

Chapters

1. Intro (00:00:00)

2. Massive Video Game Layoffs (00:03:57)

3. The Role of Unions (00:06:38)

4. Behind Microsoft's Acquisition of Game Studios (00:09:55)

5. Phil Spencer is Just Another Executive (00:19:44)

6. How the Game Pass Business Model is Affecting the Wider Industry (00:22:37)

7. Microsoft's Push for AI (00:35:47)

8. The Industry Labour Market (00:37:50)

9. Sony, Nintendo, and the Indie Market (00:46:42)

10. Outro (00:55:52)