Among the many studios affected by Microsoft’s layoffs this week, id Software, the legendary house that built Doom and Quake, was hit especially hard. More than 90 workers lost their jobs, effectively chainsawing many teams in half. Today, id Software released a statement insisting that it still has the capacity to make games–the same day as layoffs hit its Frankfurt office.
Current and former id Software employees informed Aftermath of layoffs at the Frankfurt office, saying that six of twelve of id workers were let go, in line with what happened to the rest of id earlier this week. Layoffs also affected Bethesda employees working out of the same office.
Even prior to layoffs, id's Frankfurt operation was small, comprising a dozen employees across multiple departments like art and programming, with the majority working on id’s engine team. The remaining six, current and former employees told Aftermath, work on the engine. Following layoffs, Frankfurt is now home to the majority of id's id Tech engineers, with two others residing in Dallas. That said, other Zenimax studios also work on the id Tech engine.
The id Tech engine, regarded by many as a miracle of optimization, has been a point of concern following recent layoffs. Some employees have claimed that Microsoft tossed crucial institutional knowledge about its basic functions out the window, effectively killing it. In a statement posted to Twitter today, id contested that characterization of events:
While our studio was impacted, those changes were spread across teams. We still have the crew we need to build the games and tech we're known for. The team today is about the same size we were when making DOOM (2016). We have always had a flat studio where everyone is a maker, and we will remain true to that philosophy moving forward.
We are focused on supporting each other and the team members impacted. We're going to keep building the great games and tech that have defined us for the past 35 years, and we're looking forward to seeing you at QuakeCon this August.
In a statement to Kotaku earlier this week, Microsoft claimed that the id Tech engine, specifically, is in no danger of going extinct: “There are dozens of people working on id Tech across multiple locations,” an Xbox spokesperson said. “Reports that there’s only one person left in Texas are inaccurate.” (A Microsoft spokesperson sent the same statement to Aftermath today following a request for comment.)
Frankfurt was one of those locations, and now its team has been downsized. Ex-id employees, meanwhile, have taken to sites like LinkedIn to express fear and confusion about what comes next for the studio that popularized the first-person shooter genre—especially after layoffs hit the same week as the release of Doom DLC that necessitated “significant” crunch. “Nothing says business success like nuking a team into the dirt and relegating them to support studio size while also throwing out massive technological achievements,” said one earlier this week.
Next week, CWA, the union that helped organize numerous studios across Microsoft—including id—is hosting a series of Save Our Devs demonstrations outside id Software, Bethesda, and Obsidian offices. All are invited to attend and show their support.
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Nathan Grayson
