Marty Stratton has told Windows Central that id Software is still making its own games and is not dropping id Tech.

Jez Corden's piece, published yesterday, is the studio's first detailed public account since Microsoft's July cuts. It sits next to comments from former VFX/technical art producer Andrew Willis, who was among those laid off after finishing Doom: The Dark Ages and the Revelations DLC.

Willis described a July 6 Microsoft Teams call: about 95 people, cameras off, chat disabled, everyone muted except Stratton.

I received a Microsoft Teams invite, there were about 95 of us, no cameras on with chat disabled, everyone muted except (Executive Producer) Marty Stratton. He took about 50 seconds to say that if you were on this call, your positions were eliminated. He said it wasn't a reflection on our performance.

He also said Xbox never told the studio what success looked like.

They never explained anything. They never told us what metric they wanted, which is extremely confusing given Xbox Game Pass. If there was something they wanted (downloads, playtime, Game Pass subscriptions, etc.), they never told us.

It was frustrating to get laid off before we even saw how successful the Revelations DLC was. How can you lay off a team right before they release what gets called 'their best work yet'?

Stratton, 26 years at id, called the layoffs "emotion and pain" and said that is not diminished by talk about the future. He rejected the rumor that id would become a support studio or move to Unreal.

We're all in on id Tech; we're not moving to Unreal Engine.

He said MachineGames is staying on id Tech too, and the two studios will work closer on the stack. On size, Corden writes that id has lost more than half its staff and is roughly as large as it was for Doom (2016). Willis called that line damage control.

This has been one of the most frustrating mischaracterizations I've seen. It is just damage control. Id is now objectively smaller than it was during 2016. They also fired 2/3rds of the folks that were left from 2016; these would be the people who have the experience needed to make a game like that.

Stratton pointed at QuakeCon and at whatever ships next.

We've always persevered as a studio. We're going to again, we're going to continue to make great games, with great technology.

The verdict is going to be in how we move forward, what we deliver to fans, and whether or not that meets the bar.

Willis's last note was for players: support the developers. CWA's Save Our Devs action was at the Richardson office on August 18; more protests are planned.

Source: Windows Central