Backyard Baseball is back while Minecraft adds sitting: July 8-14 news

If there’s only one thing that Xbox hasn’t failed to do in the past several years, it’s being in the news. Failures dating back to the Xbox One’s botched reveal in 2013 (arguably before that, when the Xbox 360 had its weird Kinect era) led to big swings later that decade, which in turn led to the never-ending spiral that Microsoft’s gaming division now finds itself in.

Even within the brief timeframe this newsletter has existed, so many issues have been devoted to chronicling Xbox’s troubles and missteps. We’re going to start and end this week’s issue with Xbox talk, and I won’t be surprised if we find ourselves talking about Xbox even more in the immediate weeks to follow.

Since Xbox began its planned 3,200 layoffs last week, conflicting information and narratives about how many and which employees are left at certain Microsoft-owned studios have permeated the web. The focal point in most of these discussions is id Software, the legendary studio that created Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Quake.

WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) filings indicated that over 90 people (another report suggests 136 people) were cut from id Software, with key positions and entire teams reportedly being cut entirely. One report even suggested that only one person was left to maintain the studio’s praised graphical engine, id Tech. However, Microsoft disputed this narrative, claiming that there are “dozens of people working on id Tech across multiple locations.”

The social media account for id Software even put out a statement addressing concerns that the studio was just a skeleton crew, saying that the company “still [has] the crew” needed to make and support its games and tech. The studio added that the current organization’s size is “about the same size” as the team that made the beloved 2016 Doom game.

Remember that this is all happening right after id Software released an expansion for Doom: The Dark Ages. Laid-off employees have described being burnt out from working on the expansion and being “blindsided” by the cuts. It’s said that ideas that the studio was playing around with included a John Wick-style action game, a Perfect Dark game, and a multiplayer Doom game. It’s unknown if any of those concepts can move forward at the studio’s current capacity or Microsoft’s new direction.

Remember how they announced The Elder Scrolls 6 back in 2018? If you believe reporter Jason Schreier, that game is still at least two years away from being done. And with cuts affecting Bethesda, with at least 50 workers reportedly being let go, remaining employees expressed worry to IGN that they will be replaced by “cheaper, contracted labor” and that delays and crunch for The Elder Scrolls 6 will follow.

Morale has been low at Bethesda, to the point where “surviving” employees have set up vigils and memorials in offices to observe their laid-off colleagues. OneBGS, the union representing workers from Bethesda Game Studios, will stage protests this week outside of company offices in Montreal, Rockville, Austin, and Dallas.

It’s also said that Obsidian Entertainment, best known for Fallout: New Vegas and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, lost about a quarter of its talent. Reports have come out that the studio is now pivoting to a new Fallout game led by New Vegas director Josh Sawyer, and a sequel to its recent fantasy RPG Avowed has been canned. One director at Obsidian fired off on social media, blasting “misinformation” from “cold take artists” that the studio is no longer what it used to be.

Meanwhile, The Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios is trying to assure fans that despite cuts, the studio is “now at the same size as it was” when it made two highly acclaimed expansions, and that new content was still in the works. It’s hard to figure out if all the reassurances from these studios are truly reality checks or desperate attempts at damage control.

The internet is often a very bad place, so it’s no surprise that preposterous and racist conspiracy theories revolving around these layoffs have emerged. Simply on the basis of the ethnicities of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, some “Great Replacement” nonsense has emerged from the dirtiest depths of the web and floated up to outlets like Fox News.

Microsoft’s communications lead addressed the disinformation in a social media post (and I suggest not reading the replies). Of course, the layoffs from Microsoft and Xbox still warrant scrutiny—remember that 1,600 more layoffs are set to occur over the company’s current fiscal year, which understandably has current employees on edge.

(Every week, I’ll address a question or curiosity about gaming from readers! Submit your inquiries through this Google Form and read my explainer in a future newsletter!)

Dear reader Taryn wrote in with a timely question:

For those unaware, BDS is a Palestinian-led movement that advocates for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions against Israel. In short, the movement aims to apply pressure to the Israeli government and corporations that do business in Israel—or, in the case of Microsoft, partnering with the Israeli military.

BDS describes Microsoft as “perhaps the most complicit tech company” in Israel’s occupation of Gaza, as it provides Azure cloud and AI services to its military—a claim backed up by the United Nations Human Rights Council. With Microsoft having its hands on so many aspects of our technology infrastructure, organizers determined that boycotting Xbox is the best way to hit Microsoft where it hurts.

That means unsubscribing from Game Pass and boycotting Microsoft-owned games, which includes Candy Crush, Minecraft, Call of Duty, and everything under the Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, or Xbox umbrellas.

Documentarians People Make Games put out a comprehensive video in December 2025 explaining the boycott; former and current Microsoft employees organized the No Azure for Apartheid movement; and games industry workers and journalists have No Games for Genocide.

But has it actually worked? You can argue that the boycott did have a direct impact on Microsoft’s relationship with the Israeli military, though not to the degree that organizers probably want. In September 2025, Microsoft blocked the use of its technology for Unit 8200, Israel’s spy agency that is roughly the equivalent of the U.S.’s National Security Agency. Microsoft said that it accused Unit 8200 of violating terms of service, as the agency was using Azure to store surveillance data collected from millions of Palestinian civilian phone calls. It’s said that Unit 8200 planned to transfer the data to Amazon Web Services.

While BDS touted the news as a win for the movement, the boycott is still in effect due to Microsoft’s continuing relationship with the Israeli military at large. There haven’t been many major developments since then.

I have zero data to back this up, but I’d be curious if Xbox games that were published after BDS targeted Xbox were significantly impacted by the boycott—particularly, South of Midnight, Keeper, Hellblade 2, and The Outer Worlds 2. Some of those titles are said to have fallen short of Microsoft’s expectations, and the studios behind the former three titles are transitioning out of Microsoft’s ownership, while Outer Worlds studio Obsidian was hit hard by layoffs. Keep in mind, I’m connecting dots in my head with little evidence—but the BDS boycott surely didn’t help these games.

To end with a game recommendation, if you’re looking for a pleasant Sims-like game, maybe check out Paralives, which is currently blowing up (complimentary). That’s it for this week.

See you later,
Chris Compendio