Draugoth
Gold Member
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Jill Braff has been appointed as head of Bethesda/ZeniMax studios
Jesus. It's starting to be confusing.
So Phil Spencer is head of Microsoft Gaming, Sarah Bond is president of Xbox and Booty is president of content and studios.
Under Booty we have
Alan Hartman who is boss of Xbox Game Studios
Jill Braff who is boss of all Bethesda studios
Rob Kostich who is boss of Activision studios
Mike Ybarra who is boss of Blizzard
Tjodolf Sommestad who is boss of King
So what's the point of keeping Jamie Leder as CEO of Bethesda if his studios have their own boss?
So Phil Spencer is head of Microsoft Gaming, Sarah Bond is president of Xbox and Booty is president of content and studios.
Under Booty we have
Alan Hartman who is boss of Xbox Game Studios
Jill Braff who is boss of all Bethesda studios
Rob Kostich who is boss of Activision studios
Mike Ybarra who is boss of Blizzard
Tjodolf Sommestad who is boss of King
So what's the point of keeping Jamie Leder as CEO of Bethesda if his studios have their own boss?
PuppetMaster
Member
Lunarorbit
Member
Really, this is way too many people to run a ship.
Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Nah.
Hartman as head of XGS is managing 15 studios with almost 4K employees
Braff as head of Bethesda is managing 8 studios with almost 2,2K employees
Kostich as head of Activision is managing at least 9 studios with 3,5K employees
Ybarra is managing Blizzard with almost 6K employees
Sommestad is managing King with 5,5K employees
I would say that it is must to have structure like that. Nobody would be able to manage 21K employees across 34 studios alone.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Microsoft is notorious for their Byzantine corporate org chart, don't think too hard about it. But one big reason they always seem to be 4 steps behind the industry is possibly because everyone has 4 bosses and their bosses also have 4 bosses except Satya because Satya is the only CEO, it's impossible to make decisions there quickly.
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As I explained in next post, I don't have a problem with structure of heads of branches. I'm just confused what is the point of keeping Leder in CEO of Bethesda position when he isn't even managing Bethesda studios.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
The Nintendo pedigree is a little oversold, here… She worked there for one year in 1994 (midway thru SNES generation) and did consumer research. Not at all indicative of what she would do for Xbox/Bethesda.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Zenimax/ Bethesda are limited integrated entities under the buyout terms. Which means they operate mostly independently with their own management layer and policies, and loosely report to Microsoft.
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Yeah. But Braff is from Xbox and is managing Bethesda studios. So it's pretty clear that Microsoft is tightening things in regards of "independence" of Bethesda. Can't blame them after Redfall though...
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Redfall wouldn’t have been good regardless of what layer of management ultimately accepted responsibility. It didn’t go well, suffered from lack of direction. And plainly wasn’t ready.
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Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Reggie came to Nintendo from VH1 and Pizza Hut. Zero console game company experience.
It doesn’t really matter what industry you come from when it comes to marketing, you get hired based on what results you achieved. Reggie was credited with the Bigfoot Pizza.
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You know that what you said doesn't make sense right?
She's working in the videogame industry for long and I only see nothing of importance.
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S0ULZB0URNE
Member
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Just going off your own post, bro. You pointed out the example involving nothing to do with videogames. I gave a very clear example of that not mattering at all, in basically an extremely similar situation. Sorry you’re so upset.
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And yet Nintendo with around 5K employees managed to get more games out.
She's heading development, not marketing. Reggie had zero say about game development. Heck, I doubt he ever touched ground in Austin to see what Retro are doing.
ReBurn
Gold Member
I suspect they will be wishing him luck in his next endeavor once they finish whatever "integration" is.
Making a game with lower fidelity requires less people. Yeah. I'm shocked at this revelation.
All of Microsoft/Bethesda/ABK are just slightly bigger then Ubisoft for example. And I must say that King alone has 5K employees and is making games nobody in this forum cares about. So technically they have 17K employees in "core" gaming.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
Eh, that’s not accurate. He was the President/COO of the largest branch of Nintendo responsible for all sales and marketing in the western hemisphere. For fifteen years. He absolutely had a say in high level decisions. He was even made a member of the executive board the last few years after Iwata passed.
NoA management in particular does have a say in high level decisions based on what they feedback they provide on would sell vs what NCL might initially plan.
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Lower fidelity?
Is Starfield's continuos loading high fidelity? Is hi-fi rush high fidelity?
Zero say has he.
It was always obvious he's a mouth piece and the marketing lead, nothing more. There's no example where he had any say on anything they did. I think even the Nintendo Directs idea came from Japan.
She will actually lead development team with an experience in marketing? how does that make any sense.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
I’m sorry but that’s just not accurate. Not gonna argue about it tho. Clearly you are not open to additional information.
Stop acting stupid. Making a graphically demanding game is completely different beast than making a game like Tears of the Kingdom from "human resources" point of view. Hi-Fi Rush is maybe comparable and that's why it was made by few dozens of people. But it is also one of the 30+ games Xbox has in development.
Next time you will be wondering why there are 7K people in credits of Red Dead Redemption 2 and why there are "only" 1,4K people in credits of Tears of the Kingdom.
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Dirk Benedict
Gold Member
Less people to contain a unified vision. Microsoft are fucking inept.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
After seeing your other posts you’re just straight spam/cringe/not interested in actual conversations. I’ll be sure to ignore you permanently, going forward.
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If you have examples, please share I'm open to changing my mind.
Dr. Wilkinson
Member
He was a high level executive and involved in projects from an early stage of development. You’re asking for specific products. News flash, it’s more complicated than that. It doesn’t work that way. Maybe read more about it before you make yourself look so foolish, in the future. That’s entirely up to you
More graphically demanding doesn't mean more people, the amount of time and people Nintendo spends on concepting gameplay mechanics could be equal to the amount of time an artists creates a tree in Forza. How would we know?
I don't get regulating everything to graphics, esp since Nintendo isn't a slouch in that department either. There's a good chance they need to actually spend more time to "fake" outcomes on the low-powered Switch.
Not gonna derail this thread about this any longer.
What are you even saying, he is obviously talking about visual fidelity. And yes, it takes much more time to develop Starfield than what Nintendo are making. Although obviously more demanding to make does not automatically mean better.
Of course it means more people. Why on earth do you think budget of Spider-Man 2 was almost triple of budget of Spider-Man? More technology you cram into the game, more people are required to manage it. More detailed assets you need to create, more people you need to create them.
Not to mention fact that if you want to create story-driven game with "realistic" visuals you also need mocap sessions which is expensive as hell. Have you missed that Insomniac spent 30 million dollars on cutscenes for Spider-Man 2 alone?
Nintendo games have great artstyle. Which is overshadowing fact that their games are ancient in terms of technology which is helping them keeping costs of development down. That's nothing shocking.
FalconPunch
Member
Microsoft sure know how to pick them smh. Like there isn’t other talent they could have poached from their competitors? Like this lady has 0 experience in the games industry. She worked at Nintendo for one year doing consumer research according to a poster above way back in the 90s. Like how is she even qualified for this position?
SodaZA
Member
I'll always be shocked by the number of employees Blizz and king have
iamvin22
Industry Verified
This is the problem. These people want to make their millions and not be held accountable for when things go left so they keep creating new positions.
Saw this when I was at ea. Sad to see it's still ongoing till now.
graywolf323
Member
hopefully she does a good job and helps get Zenimax back to making great games like they were before this decade but her resume doesn’t inspire any confidence that she can
I’ll be rooting for her but after the last several disappointments I’m not gonna get my hopes up
twilo99
Member
They need someone to come in and clean this up … 21k is way overweight
Paulistano
Member
It's convenient to have various goons under you, you can always have someone to blame and someone to fire if shit hits the fan and it's never Spencer's fault.
Jinzo Prime
Member
Bethesda is a dead company.
Microsoft is parading around its corpse.
Microsoft is parading around its corpse.
ChuckeRearmed
Member
Basically Phil is a god, Sarah is a queen and Booty is a general, commanding the troops.
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Nah.
Considering 10k from that is just Blizzard and King. And King is pure moneymaker and Blizzard is also starting to hitting their strides.
Banjo64
cumsessed
TotK physics engine vs the graphics on Grounded or Redfall. I wonder what takes more time and resource
Not to mention no Xbox game is as graphically impressive or has as much going on under the hood as something like RDR2.
Lol. I'm not judging which one is better.TotK physics engine vs the graphics on Grounded or Redfall. I wonder what takes more time and resource
Not to mention no Xbox game is as graphically impressive or has as much going on under the hood as something like RDR2.
It's funny that people here on GAF loved to spread narrative that Halo Infinite budget was 500M+ dollars and now we need to pretend that production of Switch first-party games costs same as XGS/Sony/insert random AAA gaming publisher/ games.
Banjo64
cumsessed
So you agree or disagree that AAA games for PS5/Xbox Series X/S requires more devs and more money to make then Nintendo Switch games?
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