The UN calls for a ban on 'killer robots'
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Why are video‑game companies cutting staff and moving away from physical discs?
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The video game industry has always loved a dramatic plot twist, but lately it feels like someone has hit fast forward. Physical game discs are disappearing. Consoles and games cost more than ever. Thousands of people are losing their jobs, including the teams making games more accessible. And every company seems convinced that artificial intelligence is the answer to. Absolutely everything. So, is this another awkward growing pain for an industry that never seems to stand still? Or are we watching the biggest reset in gaming since everything went online? Plus, why is the UN speaking out against killer robots? My name is Ray Johnston, and welcome to Download This Show on ABC Radio National.
Now, joining me to unpack some of the biggest stories in tech right now and why they matter is Kai Rima, Professor at the University of Sydney Business School. Welcome back, Kai. Thanks for having me. And Gianfranco Di Giovanni, otherwise known as Gianni, games reporter at ABC Arts, and 102.5 ABC Perth Content Director. Welcome back, Gianni. G'day. Now, the video game industry is changing. Faster than most players can keep up with. So so let's give it a crack, shall we? Uh Microsoft have laid off thousands of staff, including people working on accessibility. How significant is this latest round of cuts, Gianni?
It's a pretty big one. Um, I think uh what should be sort of put into perspective is some of those um studios that Microsoft um that they've sort of accumulated over a long period of time, um, have really kind of been cut in half. Um and we're talking about studios like id Software, which was uh a legacy studio that made the Doom series of games, made the Wolfenstein games. Um they've effectively been cut in half. Half their staff, according to some reports, are gone now entirely. That also goes for studios like Obsidian, which made the original um uh uh action RPGs and made things like Fallout New Vegas. They've apparently lost half their staff as well. And so many of the studios that were acquired as part of this sort of gold rush of uh accumulation of talent and IP um during the uh you know, the Phil Spencer era.
Of Xbox are are gone. So things like um Doublefine and compulsion games and Ninja Theory, all of those studios have now been spun off into their own thing. So this is a really significant reorganization of Xbox. Um and I think there's going to be a really different look of what that uh company will within uh Microsoft will look like in the next couple of months and years.
Absolutely. And Microsoft is investing quite heavily in AI at the same time as making these cuts. Is AI playing a role in the job losses, Kai?
Probably.
How is Microsoft’s AI investment linked to the recent Xbox studio layoffs?
In two different ways, right? On the one hand, AI is being used in software development itself. Now we've seen cuts across many IT software, software as a service companies, um, but they were much smaller, usually around five to ten percent, seven percent is what Meta cut and a few others at Lassian, which is sort of a some people said it was more like a cyclical reaction because we've, you know, sort of gorged up on STEM talent for quite a while, as you said, during COVID and qu a bit of a boom in software as a service. So part natural correction a little bit around AI, but software development is changing, but this doesn't explain a twenty percent cut. And what is happening here is that the industry is facing lots of cost pressures.
And the cost pressures right now are coming from an uptick in hardware prices, especially storage and RAM, so memory. It used to be GPUs that were really expensive and they're still not cheap.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why are video‑game companies cutting staff and moving away from physical discs?
0:00–3:47
2
How is Microsoft’s AI investment linked to the recent Xbox studio layoffs?
3:47–7:38
3
What cost pressures are driving higher hardware prices for consoles and PCs?
7:38–11:05
4
Why is the UN calling for a global ban on AI‑powered killer robots?
11:05–13:51
5
What exactly qualifies as a ‘killer robot’ under the UN proposal?
13:51–17:48
6
Can an international ban on autonomous weapons realistically be enforced?
17:48–21:21
7
Which new tech this week brought the hosts the most joy?
21:21–24:37
8
What are the biggest tech‑industry headlines covered at the end of the show?
24:37–29:06