Microsoft's decision to gut id Software through mass layoffs this week hit harder than expected, even for co-founder John Carmack, who can't bring himself to get angry about it.
The Doom studio lost 136 workers as part of Xbox's broader studio purge. Carmack acknowledged the cuts on social media with resigned acceptance, essentially saying the layoffs were inevitable and that executives made necessary business decisions. He wasn't raging, but he wasn't celebrating either.
What stung more was the symbolic loss. Carmack noted the layoffs would "dampen the mood of the founder reunion," hinting at plans to gather id Software's original team. That reunion now feels hollow with such a depleted roster.
The massacre extends beyond id Software. Microsoft shuttered Double Fine Productions, Arkane Studios, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, and Ninja Theory in coordinated fashion, cutting thousands of jobs across Xbox Game Pass and internal development. This represents one of the industry's largest single layoff waves in recent memory.
Carmack's muted response reflects veteran industry perspective. He recognizes consolidation logic even when it devastates the studio he built into a legendary powerhouse. Yet his comment about the founder reunion betrays the emotional weight of watching id Software gutted decades after its founding.
id Software has limped along since the Doom Eternal era, struggling to define its next project. Microsoft apparently decided the studio couldn't justify its headcount or direction. The timing brutalized hopes for reinvention under Xbox ownership, which had promised support for studios acquired in the bethesda.net deal.
The layoffs signal Xbox's pivot toward selective development, consolidation, and aggressive Game Pass spending reductions. Microsoft is cutting losses aggressively, prioritizing profitable franchises and proven talent over experimental studios and ambitious new projects. For id Software, legendary but creatively adrift, the