On July 6, Microsoft leadership announced a new wave of mass layoffs within Xbox, this time affecting 1600 full-time employees, as well as numerous contractors, with another 1600 expected through the company’s 2027 fiscal year. This round of layoffs not only saw the decimation of studios like id Software; it also targeted many who worked on accessibility across the greater Xbox ecosystem, a relative first for industrywide layoffs.
Since 2018, Xbox has proudly and publicly championed accessibility with the release of the Xbox Adaptive Controller, as well as a plethora of innovative, award-winning features like Forza’s Blind Driving Assists and Doom: The Dark Ages’ game speed and difficulty options. Disabled players have expected robust accessibility offerings created by each Xbox studio.
Now, according to former employees and contractors, the vastness of layoffs, particularly surrounding people working on accessibility within games and Xbox services, is going to impact how disabled individuals interact with Xbox. Xbox has restructured a centralized accessibility team, removed all funding for Microsoft Gaming Accessibility Testing Services (MGATS), and eliminated accessibility testers for games and compliance experts for Xbox sites. People who spoke to Aftermath are grappling with uncertainty about how these layoffs will impact future games, services, and even digital access.
Microsoft did not reply to a request for comment by time of publishing.
The Question of Game Accessibility
Microsoft’s gaming ecosystem covers an array of genres, series, and new ideas. From Bethesda Games Studios, to Turn 10, to Playground Games, disabled individuals have been able to confidently experience most of Xbox’s portfolio alongside able-bodied peers. As one laid-off employee involved in accessibility across game studios told me, accessibility was supported not just across Xbox, but also by individuals within every studio. Xbox’s cuts also impacted researchers, many of them contractors, who tested games to ensure the accessible features and designs were usable by disabled individuals. After these layoffs, the former employee said that disabled players may not notice the lack of proper support for quite some time.
“I loved every minute of working on accessibility for Xbox titles, and I’m heartbroken I won’t be around to help anymore,” they said. “The future of Xbox accessibility is going to be something that takes a long time for players to feel. Individual studios still have their accessibility culture that they’ve built up over many years.”
It’s not a question of whether each remaining development team cares about accessibility, but rather if they still have the resources to properly implement each feature and design. The former employee explained that games releasing within the next year are relatively finished in terms of accessibility testing and feature roadmaps, but there’s no certainty what the future of Xbox accessibility looks like beyond 2027. This is in large part due to cuts not only affecting the internal full-time Xbox accessibility team and individual studios’ employees, but also contractors who provided critical services like accessibility testing. They said that without a centralized accessibility support network, the “standards and prioritization frameworks that helped save teams time and energy” no longer exist.
“That support structure, while on paper didn’t look like it was doing anything, was actually educating and connecting developers, and providing the framework to take a massive list and then narrow it down to what would be most impactful for disabled players,” the former employee said. “If we think about games like Forza, their innovations came from Game Accessibility Workshops. But who is left to run the Workshops if Xbox’s research headcount has been cut, and there are no dedicated accessibility researchers?”
Shrinking Accessibility Support
The former employee highlighted the Microsoft Gaming Accessibility Testing Services (MGATS), which plays a pivotal role in assisting developers to ensure each game fits within the Xbox Accessibility Guidelines (XAG) for disabled consumers. Since February 2021, MGATS has worked with console and PC developers to ensure each game is as accessible as possible by conducting tests and measuring scores found within the Xbox Accessibility Guidelines (XAG). These efforts further culminated in the industrywide Accessible Gaming Initiative (AGI) tag system. Created by the Entertainment Software Association, Microsoft, along with Google, Nintendo, Sony, EA, and Ubisoft now provide a list of tags of accessible features and designs found within each game on their store pages, which helps disabled players identify what accessibility features are given before purchasing the game.
While developers ultimately decide for themselves what tags are listed, Microsoft utilized contractors to help determine which tags would best suit a game. Now, cuts affecting contractors who determined and checked tags, as well as what multiple people told Aftermath was the removal of all funding for MGATS, are jeopardizing if Microsoft’s involvement with the AGI will continue to be accurate.
“I think the most immediate [sign of layoffs] is going to be the tags on the Xbox store,” a former tester for the AGI said. “Many developers who are updating store pages and adding accessibility tags don’t know how the tags work. It was very common for a developer to put 10 or more tags, and their game only qualified for roughly three. With confidence, I can say approximately half of tags would not be accurate, and we would ask developers to please remove them for store accuracy.”
For some disabled players, accessibility tags are the difference between whether they purchase a game or not. If someone needs control remapping or subtitles and the store page incorrectly lists those features, that’s wasted money on a game they might not be able to play. The tester said that Microsoft, when compared to Sony and Steam, was the only developer to properly test tag accuracy by playing the games and determining which accessibility features were available to players. This level of moderation, according to the tester, was often praised by disabled individuals. Further, they noted that some developers wouldn’t even include tags, and it was the testers who were responsible for playing games and determining which tags would be appropriate.
“We stopped tag moderation on June 30 [immediately before the layoffs], so anything going forward, you’re just going to have to trust the developer to get it accurate,” they said. “Throughout the rest of the year, it’s going to be noticeable that tags are less accurate. Beyond 2027, there’s going to be a lot less resources.”
A Lack of Accessibility Compliance
Both the former employee and the tester emphasized that Xbox is entering a new era of uncertainty with its accessibility initiatives. Whether it’s games or game recommendations, disabled players will simply have to wait to see how these layoffs will affect their experiences. But as a former program manager noted, the layoffs don’t impact just games. Even accessibility for any Xbox website, a European Union legal requirement, is in jeopardy.
“Before I left, there was a large question as to what’s going to happen to compliance testing,” they said. “To my knowledge, the vendors in charge of compliance accessibility testing for [Xbox] website owners were all laid off. The plan I heard before I left was that compliance testing was going to be given to website owners for them to do the work themselves. That’s a big challenge because accessibility testing is a very particular skill.”
The project manager said that no backfills or future positions will open for their role. As a result, accessibility tools like screen readers, a necessity for blind and low vision users to navigate websites, could cease to function if website owners fail to ensure they work. They said that it wouldn’t take long for disabled users to notice if issues arise.
“A lot of the sites were either tested monthly or every two months,” they said. “If the testing is no longer being done by testing experts, I think it could be noticeable within six months.”
Since 2018, Xbox proudly advertised its accessible achievements. From press tours, to a now delisted Super Bowl commercial, to award-winning games, disabled players felt represented by a major developer in the gaming space. According to a person with knowledge who asked to remain anonymous, Xbox's accessibility endeavors post-layoff are unrecognizable compared to previous years. What was once a major developer that championed accessibility has now become a myriad of studios that could struggle to maintain accessible initiatives. What the future looks like is uncertain, but whatever happens, it's not the same Xbox from years prior.
