Corpo exec speak translation: "something here is way worse than you can imagine, but we have got it under control now and everything is fine."

The more days the exec goes on about it being all fine now, the worse the core problem they are trying to cover up is.

Lukiopimp wrote on Sep 20, 2023, 04:25:
Would be way easier if you were more transparent in the first place. They talk about plans that have evolved but keep them secret. Can't trust MS, Activision or EA as a company. Being open and honest to your players is something I value very much from smaller publishers or indie games.

You don't get transparency because gamers are too emotionally immature to handle it. Every off-hand mention of something in the works is a promise written in blood or carved in stone to gamers, and when the company then decides not to do a thing for whatever reason, there is a mega-tantrum.

i.e. "YOU PROMISED ME ID BE ABLE TO FUCK THE ALIEN BRONTOSAURUSES AND THAT N-BODY GRAVITY SIMULATION WOULD BE IN THE GAME, CURSE YOU!"

PHJF wrote on Sep 20, 2023, 12:04:

Desalus wrote on Sep 20, 2023, 08:31:

Prez wrote on Sep 20, 2023, 08:14:
Why would he apologize to the employees? Didn't think they would care that much, if at all.

I'm guessing there are some that feel slighted that the product they worked on didn't get a big surprise reveal moment. The official reveal will eventually come, but it will be far less impactful because everyone will be expecting it.

Yeah nobody is expecting all these established IPs to get new releases

It was the reveal of the upcoming hardware that was significant, not the games.

Desalus wrote on Sep 20, 2023, 08:31:

Prez wrote on Sep 20, 2023, 08:14:
Why would he apologize to the employees? Didn't think they would care that much, if at all.

I'm guessing there are some that feel slighted that the product they worked on didn't get a big surprise reveal moment. The official reveal will eventually come, but it will be far less impactful because everyone will be expecting it.

Yeah nobody is expecting all these established IPs to get new releases

Prez wrote on Sep 20, 2023, 08:14:
Why would he apologize to the employees? Didn't think they would care that much, if at all.

I'm guessing there are some that feel slighted that the product they worked on didn't get a big surprise reveal moment. The official reveal will eventually come, but it will be far less impactful because everyone will be expecting it.

RogueSix wrote on Sep 19, 2023, 20:10:
Besides, this is ironic to the max and they are embarrassing themselves beyond measure because leaking the internal memo that is covering a leak and promising in that internal leaked memo that you are going to do better with regard to leaks is kind of hilarious

I believe these communications are written with the intention or expectation that they make it to the press. There have been numerous company wide communications about the Activision acquisition that are publicly published the same day as they were sent and they are always written as if they are addressing the public as well. So there's really nothing embarrassing about it. Instead it's just an expectation at this point.

Why would he apologize to the employees? Didn't think they would care that much, if at all.

Orogogus wrote on Sep 20, 2023, 01:26:

RogueSix wrote on Sep 19, 2023, 20:10:

Sepharo wrote on Sep 19, 2023, 19:59:
Where are you two seeing panic?

The sole reason that they felt forced to write an internal memo at all speaks volumes about their adrenaline levels. The confident way to deal with this would have been to not comment at all, at least not in a written format.

Then people would just mock them for acting as if the news didn't exist. "Deafening silence" is the usual term for when a company tries to ignore something. And employees don't usually appreciate it when they have to learn about these things from outside sources, or managers when they hear about them from their subordinates before Corporate.

Well, it was too late for that already, right? The employees read about the leaks in the news first. Then MS sent out that memo for internal "damage control" (not really). They should have reacted with a public one liner press release like "We do not comment on unannounced projects" just as many/most other corps in their position do. Then investigate internally regarding the source of the leak.

Like, when someone quits/is fired and there's no company email, the higher up they were the more it's going to lower employees' opinion of the company; if they get it from the news while the company says nothing then they'll think the company's a joke

I do not think that is comparable. Besides, if a higher up of some significance quits/leaves/is fired then, depending on the size of the company, the right thing to do (imo) would be to either inform the employees directly in a team meeting/team call, or in a huge corporation, to inform/brief the team leads and have them pass on the information to the individual teams.

This really depends though. Like, if the boss of Machine Games quits/leaves/is fired, would you really have to inform everyone across the entire Microsoft corporation in an internal memo? Not in my world. I'd keep this within Machine Games and the executive leads at Bethesda. That is all the people who need to know.

If you make too much of a big deal of something then you do not engage in damage control but you make yourself look like you are in "panic mode". Which MS did here. They handled it poorly and the fact that the internal memo leaked on top of the actual leak is the icing on the shitcake .
They should have brushed this off with a short public press release. Then investigate internally regarding the source of the leaks. Everything else (teams/projects potentially affected by the leak) should have been discussed with the leads of those teams/projects directly and internally.

Panic mode, naw, just plain old boilerplate executive CYA. Nothing to see here, move along.

Most likely the unannounced games were still being negotiated and were far from signed deals.

Those games were listed in the "Closed" colum as unlikely. Closed as in deals.

This comment was edited on Sep 21, 2023, 06:43.

Would be way easier if you were more transparent in the first place. They talk about plans that have evolved but keep them secret. Can't trust MS, Activision or EA as a company. Being open and honest to your players is something I value very much from smaller publishers or indie games.

An internal memo isn't very panicky if you know how many of those get sent out all the time. This leak seems pretty inconsequential, given that its the kind of stuff industry insiders would already have known and plus it's quite out of date. But given that it was getting press, they had to say something.

RogueSix wrote on Sep 19, 2023, 20:10:

Sepharo wrote on Sep 19, 2023, 19:59:
Where are you two seeing panic?

The sole reason that they felt forced to write an internal memo at all speaks volumes about their adrenaline levels. The confident way to deal with this would have been to not comment at all, at least not in a written format.

Then people would just mock them for acting as if the news didn't exist. "Deafening silence" is the usual term for when a company tries to ignore something. And employees don't usually appreciate it when they have to learn about these things from outside sources, or managers when they hear about them from their subordinates before Corporate. Like, when someone quits/is fired and there's no company email, the higher up they were the more it's going to lower employees' opinion of the company; if they get it from the news while the company says nothing then they'll think the company's a joke.

And I think an internal email is pretty low key. Video from an all-hands in-person or Zoom department meeting would come across as a lot more panicky.

xcrements*

Microsoft cannot pivot that quickly on multiple projects.

Sepharo wrote on Sep 19, 2023, 19:59:
Where are you two seeing panic?

The sole reason that they felt forced to write an internal memo at all speaks volumes about their adrenaline levels. The confident way to deal with this would have been to not comment at all, at least not in a written format.

Besides, this is ironic to the max and they are embarrassing themselves beyond measure because leaking the internal memo that is covering a leak and promising in that internal leaked memo that you are going to do better with regard to leaks is kind of hilarious .

So, Mickeysoft, y'all might wanna start with who leaked the internal memo and then follow the bread crumb trail from there...

Where are you two seeing panic?

I don't understand why the panic about the leak?

lol @ panic mode