Chris Hays, id Software’s lead services programmer, has given his first on-the-record interview since July’s layoffs. He told the Auf ein Bier podcast that making another AAA Doom with the team Xbox left him is “impossible”, and that Xbox “fundamentally doesn’t understand art”.
Hays has been at id since 2010, worked on Doom Eternal and Doom: The Dark Ages, and is still employed there. He spoke to the podcast’s Andre Peschke about the cuts that removed 136 of the studio’s roughly 185 staff in July — the same round that a former colleague said left the studio support-team sized.
“It’s hard to make a game that is AAA, that’s like we’ve done before, with half the people,” he said. “And by hard, I mean impossible.”
The Doom studio after the Xbox layoffs
id responded to the cuts with a statement insisting the team was “about the same size” as during the development of Doom 2016. Hays works there, and he counts differently.
“We’re not the same id. We’re half the same id. id was the people.”
“There is a reason they say close to, because it is less.”
The studio that shipped Doom: The Dark Ages now has fewer people than the one that shipped Doom 2016, so the next game scales down with it. “Are we going to make something equivalent to a single-player Xbox 360 game?” he asked. “Because that’s the size of the studio we have.”
He also described management being handed talking points after the cuts — “things that are allowed to be said and what is not allowed to be said” — in an effort to stop people leaving. “They don’t want unrest.”
‘They don’t understand that business model’
Game Pass draws his strongest criticism. Every id game joins the service on day one, and Hays said the studio has “serious issues with how Game Pass is done”. Microsoft’s own reporting, he said, makes little sense under the model.
“What’s a sale if you have Game Pass? … They fundamentally don’t understand art. They don’t. They don’t understand art. They don’t understand games. They don’t understand that business model.”
Kotaku, which covered the same interview, notes Hays has “no idea” why id was hit so hard.
What happens next
The Verge’s Tom Warren reported after the cuts that id is in the early stages of a new Doom game. Nothing has been announced since. Hays’ interview is the most detailed account yet of what the remaining team can build. id’s next public appearance is QuakeCon, which it pointed to in its own statement last month. IGN has the full interview write-up.
Who is Chris Hays?
Chris Hays is the lead services programmer at id Software. He joined the studio in 2010 and worked on Doom Eternal and Doom: The Dark Ages.
What did the Doom developer say about Xbox and Game Pass?
Hays said Xbox ‘fundamentally doesn’t understand art’ and that the Game Pass model makes the concept of a sale meaningless: ‘What’s a sale if you have Game Pass?’ He also claimed id management was given talking points to stop staff leaving after the layoffs.
Is id Software working on a new Doom game?
The Verge’s Tom Warren reported after the cuts that id is in the early stages of a new Doom game, but nothing has been officially announced. Hays’ interview suggests the remaining team is far smaller than the one that shipped Doom: The Dark Ages.
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